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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS 


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JAMES HENRY BREASTED 




















ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS 
OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


‘ THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
New York 


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Pl. X. — The Wall of BithnanaYa in Hall I] : Head of the Second figure 























THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS 
VOLUME I 


ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS 
OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


FIRST-CENTURY WALL PAINTINGS FROM 
THE FORTRESS OF DURA ON THE 
MIDDLE EUPHRATES 


By 


JAMES HENRY BREASTED 



















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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


Coryricut 1924 By 
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Published March, 1924 


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PREFACE 


Our only archaeological predecessors at the ancient frontier stronghold of the 
Seleucids on the middle Euphrates, with which this volume deals, called it “the 
nameless city.”! Three years ago, indeed, the name of Dura was known to us only 
in a few unnoticed passages of Greek and Latin sources, and it is safe to affirm that 
few if any students of the ancient world knew that such a place ever existed. Buried 
in the heart of the Syrian Desert, the ruin to which this name once belonged had been 
forgotten fifteen hundred years ago. Its situation, 140 miles beyond the desert 
metropolis of Palmyra, saved it from the destruction which overtook the latter city 
at the hands of Aurelian in 4.p. 273, and at the same time left it so far beyond the reach 
of modern archaeological observation that it has remained a lost city for fifteen 
centuries. 

‘Tn this lost city on the outer fringes of the Roman Empire in Asia were thus pre- 
served the only surviving oriental forerunners of Byzantine painting, out of which 
arose the pre-Renaissance painting of Europe. Moreover, the city of Dura itself is 
a unique survival. <A city left like a wave-mark on the oriental desert by the receding 
tide of Graeco-Macedonian invasion under Alexander and his successors, it became an 
oriental home of Hellenistic culture, a center of Graeco-Syrian civilization, too inacces- 
sible and too far from the Mediterranean to be built over and engulfed by later Roman 
structures. Untouched, therefore, by the Roman demolition so common in cities 
of its age, the Hellenistic strata lie almost on the surface, unaltered by Roman or 
Byzantine occupation. Forsaken at last and buried under a protecting mantle of 
desert sand, its monuments and works of art have suffered little from the relatively 
scanty rainfall, which did not penetrate deep enough to do any damage below. 

Dura lies in the debatable ground between Syria and the Mediterranean world 
on the west and Mesopotamia on the east and north. It was the good fortune of the 
University of Chicago expedition to make the first dash undertaken by white men 
after the Great War across this desert region and the newly proclaimed Arab state, 
from Baghdad to Aleppo and the Mediterranean. The story of this journey has been 
briefly told in the first bulletin of the new Oriental Institute of the University of 
Chicago. Creeping up the Eyphrates as quietly and as expeditiously as we could, 
and making every effort to elude the treacherous and hostile Beduin, we reached 


1“T)ie namenlose Stadt,” Sarre and Herzfeld, Archaeologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris- 
Gebiet, II, 394f. Berlin, 1920. 


2 See the present writer’s report, ‘The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: A Begin- 
ning and a Program,” Oriental Institute Communications No. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1922. 


1 


2 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Dura-Salihtyah just as the British were about to begin their retirement down river. 
After a hasty preliminary inspection for which we ran up by automobile from the 
British headquarters at Albu Kamal, we found ourselves at Dura with but a single 
day which we could devote to making our records of the place. Without the protection 
of the British Indian troops it was not safe to remain a moment longer at Dura, and 
this first publication of the Oriental Institute therefore represents a single day’s field 
work of the expedition. 

Notwithstanding the unavoidably hurried character of our records at Dura, the 
ancient wall paintings which we found there have aroused an interest which has ealled 
for some report of them. The further fact that the most important of the wall paintings 
recorded has since been so seriously damaged by the Arabs that our records are now 
the capital source for knowledge of it, has emphasized the need of a publication of 
these unique documents for the use of historians, archaeologists, and art students. 
Their chief importance les in their evident character as cultural links between the 
Orient and later Europe. ‘The reader who will examine the mosaics from the church 
of San Vitale at Ravenna (Plate X XII) and compare them with the largest of the Dura 
wall paintings (Plate VIII), will not long be in doubt that we have in these Dura 
paintings a part of the heretofore lost oriental ancestry of Byzantine art. 

At the invitation of the Académie des Inscriptions, therefore, the present writer 
read a communication before its members at the session of July 7, 1922, briefly report- 
ing on the paintings, and at the same time exhibiting enlarged photographs in colors. 
The editors of Syria expressed such interest in the discovery that it seemed appropriate 
to give to them the manuscript of this communication read before the Académie 
for publication, together with the colored photographs. From the beginning the 
eminent Belgian scholar Franz Cumont, a foreign member of the Académie, had 
displayed the greatest interest in the whole question of the Dura documents, which 
I had previously showed to him on his last visit to America. . With his customary 
generosity he gave the enterprise unlimited time and placed his encyclopedic knowledge 
unreservedly at my disposal. He translated into French the text of my communication 
to the Académie, and added valuable suggestions and observations of hisown. He also 
wrote a Note additionnelle further discussing the subject, and the whole was published 
with the color plates in Syria (III, 177-218, and Plates XXXI-L).! For all his 
kindness and invaluable aid it is a pleasant duty to express here my sincere thanks to 
my friend, M. Cumont. 

1The color plates were also published in Les Travaux Archéologiques en Syrie de 1920 a 1922 
(Service des Antiquités et des Beaux-Arts) “Publication faite 41’ occasion de l’Exposition de Mar- 
seille’”’ (1922), Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1923, accompanied by a discussion furnished by M. Cumont, 
entitled: ‘‘Les Fresques d’Epoque Romaine Relevées par M. Breasted 4 Es-Salihtye sur l’Euphrate,” 
pp. 48-54. An account of his first campaign of excavation at the place was also appended by M. 


Cumont, ‘‘Les Fouilles de Salihtyeh sur lEuphrate,”’ ibid., pp. 55-75. These essays of M. Cumont 
will be referred to herein as Les Travaux Archéologiques. 





PREFACE 3 


Interest in the matter did not stop here. I had asked the now lamented Clermont- 
Ganneau whether he thought it would be possible for us to secure an air photograph 
of the great Dura fortress by the aid of the French Air Force in Syria. He at once 
wrote to General Gouraud at Beirfit and raised the question of the possibility 
of further investigation of the whole ruin at Dura-Salihtyah. At the same time 
M. Cumont was also very active in promoting interest in the matter, especially in the 
possibility of excavating and recovering the other paintings of Dura, of which we had 
seen traces but which we had not been able to excavate, as well as the wall of the tribune 
which we had not been able to record satisfactorily because of our enforced departure. 
General Gouraud responded with an offer to send troops to the fortress to aid in 
excavation and also to protect the archaeologists in their study of the place. My 
friend Cumont cordially urged me to go and gave me every opportunity to continue 
the work which our hurried passage had only permitted us to begin. Obligations in 
Egypt, however, did not permit me to accept the invitation, and M. Cumont, therefore, 
undertook alone the commission of the Académie des Inscriptions to proceed to Dura 
under the protection of French troops. With adequate time, and with the French 
infantry available not only for doing the actual work of excavation, but also for the 
military protection indispensable in this turbulent region, M. Cumont took up the 
work at Dura with great success. He cleared a part of the Hellenistic city within the 
fortifications; he found three more public buildings; he actually found a parchment 
fragment containing a portion of the Hellenistic laws of the place; he found inscriptions 
dating the temple paintings with certainty; and he excavated the other painted wall 
which our hurried departure did not permit us to investigate. On these results of 
his work at Dura he is to be heartily congratulated. He has published three reports 
on this work preliminary to fuller publication.! I am indebted to his kindness for 
sending me in manuscript his report in Syrza in advance of publication, from which I 
have drawn valuable new facts resulting from his excavations. 

While on his return journey from Dura-Salihiyah, M. Cumont sent me the following 
letter which is of importance to readers of this book. 


BETWEEN Hama AND Homs 
23 November, 1922 


My Drar FRIEND: 


At the moment of passing Kadesh it occurs to me to give you a few details of my work at 
Saélihtyah, whence I am returning. On my arrival there the 7th of November, I found 250 
soldiers camped in the enclosure which you have described and before my arrival they had 
already cleared the whole chapel. I found the great sacrificial scene (wall of Bithnanaia) 
published by you, already terribly injured. The sand with which the Indian soldiers had 


1 Comptes rendus Acad. des Inscr. (1923), pp. 12-41; Syria, IV (1923), 38-58; and Les Travaux 
Archéologiques (see preceding note), pp. 55-75. 


4 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


covered it had not withstood the desert winds and the rains. The officers told me that on 
their arrival they found all the faces mutilated by the Bedawin and the rest of the scene had 
faded considerably in two years under the action of the sun and the rains. We found practi- 
cally intact only the small figures in the lower part of the scene. 

Your plates in color will remain the capital documents for the study of this painting and 
it is fortunate that you were in a position to make such good reproductions of it before it was 
destroyed. Of the picture of the Roman tribune, which you photographed in unfavorable 
circumstances, we were able to obtain better reproductions. 

In addition we were able to study, photograph and copy in color a large fresco, unfortu- 
nately in rather poor condition, which occupies in the first hall the wall corresponding to 
that of Bithnanaia (four personages sacrificing). 

We also carefully recorded all the little pictures which you saw in the evening near the 
tribune. 

There are inscriptions which throw new light on the question of the date of these paintings. 
One in Greek commemorates either the foundation of the sanctuary itself, or rather that of 
one of its dependent structures. It is of the year 114 (a.p.) and states expressly that this is 
a temple of Zeus(-Baal). The other dedication is in Latin and was placed in honor of 
Alexander Severus by a Palmyrene cohort. 

In the middle of the temple court rose an altar. This court was surrounded by the 
habitations of the priests and hierodules and was contiguous to a large outer court or square 
surrounded by a portico. 

It is evident—and this is the chief result of our excavations—that the enceinte of Salihiyah 
contained a Greek city which can only be Dura-Europos. The city is laid out with streets 
at right angles (already the “block” system) and several of its buildings have been brought 
to light: a sort of small theater or audience hall, a sanctuary furnished with steps each of 
which bears the name ofshim who had the right to occupy it, etc. Near this point two statues 
wefe brought to light of which one, of marble, is very fine. The earliest date which was 
recorded is A.D. 31. 

The most interesting of the graffiti contain lists of objects belonging to the temple. They 
show that along with Zeus the Palmyrene gods Aglibol and Yarhibol were also worshipped. 

Among the various objects found the most unexpected were some fragments of parchment 
bearing the remains of writing which were exhumed in the course of a tour of the fortifications. 

The necropolis lay outside the city beyond the west wall and contained a large number 
of burial caves originally surmounted by circular or rectangular superstructures. 

This in a few words constitutes what new facts we have learned about Dura. You can 
see that our investigations have not rendered yours valueless but that on the contrary they 
complete the results that you were able to obtain two years ago. I wanted to inform you 
at once in these few lines of the result of my journey. As soon as I reach Paris I shall make 
a report of my expedition to the Académie and I shall send it to you as soon as it is printed. 
I hope to find on my return the number of Syria containing your article and I hope that 
the color plates may be equal to our hopes. 

Believe me always 

Your cordially devoted friend, 


Franz CuMoNT 


P.S.: The frescos were carefully covered this time under a layer of sand retained by a 
stone wall. 





PREFACE 5 


In a second Jetter M. Cumont adds several more important items: 


Certainly your color plates [of Dura] ought to be republished with a commentary in 
English. They are the only documents which we have that show the condition of the great 
fresco at the time of its discovery. 


If you wish to publish my letter I put it entirely at your disposition, but it does not 
mention some of the most important things. I wrote it on the train before having studied 
carefully the notes which I had made. I should add that one of the new frescos is signed and 
that the name of the artist is Semitic and not Greek. His name is [lasamsos, ‘‘the Sun is 
god.” There are also other points which you will perhaps wish to mention in the English 
article. For example Clermont-Ganneau has expressed the opinion that in the frescos of the 
tribune the three statues are not those of emperors but of the three Palmyrene gods, Baal, 
Aglibol, and Yarhibol in war panoply, and I am inclined to think that he is right. 


It will be seen, therefore, that the lamentable destruction of the great painting 
(wall of Bithnanaia, Plate VIII) has made it impossible to secure any fuller or more 
accurate records of it than we were able to make in the single day which the impending 
British evacuation permitted us to make. Following M. Cumont’s recommendation, 
therefore, the Oriental Institute is issuing as full a publication as possible of the work 
it was able to do at Dura, and adding also the new data resulting from M. Cumont’s 
excavations. Students of art and history will find in these documents a new vista 
leading back from Byzantine art to an earlier oriental background. It reveals at the 
same time with increased clearness the position of the Roman Empire on the Euphrates 
both before and after the advance of Trajan, and especially the ceaseless interpenetra- 
tion of Orient and Occident especially evident after the campaigns of Alexander the 
Great, although evident to the orientalist as far back at least as the dawn of the Age 
of Metal in Europe (about 3000 B.c.), and with hardly a doubt even much earlier. 
These unique documents, therefore, illustrate very clearly the process which it is the 
duty and function of the Institute to investigate and as far as possible to recover. 

It would seem appropriate, therefore, that this first volume of the Oriental Institute 
Publications should offer in this connection a brief statement concerning the origin 
and purpose of the Institute itself. Founded by the generosity of Mr. John D. 
Rockefeller, Jr., and the enlightened co-operation of the Trustees of the University 
of Chicago, the Oriental Institute is a laboratory for historical research. It is intended 
to furnish a means of organizing the members of the teaching staff of the Department 
of Oriental Languages, together with members of the Institute from the outside, into 
a body of investigators and at the same time to make accessible to them all the original 
documents which can be made available, either by purchase, by copying, or by any 
feasible method of collecting and gathering into the archives of the Institute the 
surviving records of the ancient Orient. The region to which the Oriental Institute 
purposes to devote its chief attention is commonly called the Near East, by which we 
mean the eastern Mediterranean world and the adjacent regions eastward, at least 
through Persia. It is now quite evident that civilization arose in this region and passed 


6 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


thence to Europe. In the broadest general terms, therefore, the task of the Oriental 
Institute is the study of the origins of civilization, the history of the earliest civilized 
societies, the transition of civilization to Europe, and the relations of the Orient to 
the great civilizations of Europe after the cultural leadership of the world had passed 
from the Orient to European peoples. 

In illustration of the foregoing program, I may be permitted to mention some of 
the enterprises which the Institute thus far has undertaken. In the winter of 1919-20 
the Institute undertook a preliminary inspection of the accessible regions of the Near 
Kast, for the collection of original monuments and documents and the study of the 
monuments in situ. The journey included the voyage of the Nile as far as Thebes, 
and in Western Asia a reconnaissance of the Babylonian Plain, the upper Tigris as 
far as the mountains north of Mosul, where the party was stopped by the hostile 
Kurds, the return to Baghdad, the ascent of the Euphrates and the return to the 
Mediterranean via Aleppo, the coast of Phoenicia, and parts of Palestine. On this 
journey a considerable body of valuable original sources, both written and unwritten, 
was acquired by purchase. 

The study of the documents of Western Asia is in pressing need of an exhaustive 
Babylonian and Assyrian dictionary. With a resident staff of five people and with 
the co-operation of a number of outside scholars the Institute has been engaged for 
over two years in the compilation of this much needed dictionary, which is progressing 
at the rate of nearly 100,000 cards a year. At present the files contain about 300,000 
cards. It is hoped that the dictionary may be completed within eight years more. 

“At the same time the administrative staff of the Institute has been at work endeav- 
oring to organize the existent sources of knowledge regarding the ancient history of the 
Near East. These materials take the form of a subject catalogue alphabetically 
arranged on cards, and filed in drawers like a library catalogue. This project, there- 
fore, aims at an encyclopedic organization of subjects which if completed would 
enable the investigator to turn to any important subject in the range of Near Eastern 
civilization and history, and to find collected under that subject all the material throw- 
ing light upon it, whether in modern books and treatises or in ancient original docu- 
ments and monuments. That such completeness never will be wholly attainable is 
obvious, but even in an incomplete stage such an organization of materials is indis- 
pensable to the purposes of the Institute. These archives now contain about 35,000 
cards. In view of our lack of a sufficient Egyptian dictionary, one of the specialized 
sections of these archives is devoted to a collection of all Egyptian words which have 
anywhere been especially discussed by particular scholars in oriental journals and 
treatises. 

Among the great bodies of original documents surviving from the ancient Orient 
none is more important or difficult than the religious compositions. The study of 
such documents is still in its infancy. Our understanding of the Egyptian Book of 





PREFACE if 


the Dead is conditioned by our knowledge of the older Egyptian literature out of 
which the Book of the Dead was built up. The current translations of the Book of 
the Dead are quite worthless for this reason. It is necessary, therefore, to collect 
and study the religious documents which were the predecessors of the Book of the 
Dead. Of the Pyramid Texts, the archaic religious documents which are written in 
the chambers and passages of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramids, and which contain 
the oldest religious literature available in any language, we have had an adequate 
edition since 1910. On the other hand the Coffin Texts, the extraordinary mortuary 
literature inscribed in ink on the insides of the Middle Kingdom wooden coffins 
dating from the half millennium of which the middle falls at about 2000 B.c., has 
been but little collected and studied. The Institute has, therefore, undertaken the 
collection, editing, and publication of all these materials. The work began in the 
winter of 1922-23 in the great collection of the Cairo Museum. The task of making 
a complete photographic record of the Cairo coffins is nearly finished and a considerable 
beginning on the accompanying hand copies has been made. The European and 
American museums will be included later, until all the known Coffin Texts have 
been incorporated in the Institute records. Out of this complete body of copies 
a standard edition of the Coffin Texts will be made, on the basis of which an 
understanding of the Book of the Dead will be possible. This will, of course, be a 
work of years. 

Another important class of documents consists of those which embody proverbial 
wisdom in animal stories. Probably few readers of the delectable Uncle Remus 
tales have realized that these seemingly American stories found their way into the 
cabins of our southern negroes from the slave markets of eastern Africa, whither 
they had wandered from a remoter and an earlier Orient. Besides the East Indian 
sources, the oriental originals are at present chiefly Arabic and Syriac manuscripts; but 
such tales circulated as early as the Assyrian Empire in Western Asia, and fragments 
of them are still found in cuneiform tablets, while in their oldest known form they have 
survived in delightful sketches on papyrus by Egyptian artists who cleverly depict 
human relations in the animal world. These amusing caricatures probably go back 
to the fourteenth or fifteenth century B.c. Besides the line of descent to us through 
the African slave markets, there is another through England, where the oriental animal 
tales were translated by Sir Thomas North from Spanish and Italian versions in 1570. 
The English translator is doubtless more familiar to most English or American readers 
as the author of the version of Plutarch’s lives used by Shakespeare. This literature 
of animal tales from the Orient has been translated into more languages than any other 
book except the Bible and is a striking illustration of how culture influences have 
passed from the Orient to the West. The Institute is now having photographed all 
the known oriental manuscripts, chiefly Arabic, in which these Tales of Kalila and 
Dimna, as they are called, have survived to us. 


8 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Parallel with this project in the field of literature the Institute is also at work in 
the realm of the history of natural science. The extraordinary ancient Egyptian 
surgical and medical treatise, now known as the Edwin Smith Papyrus, in the collec- 
tions of the New York Historical Society, is really the earliest surviving scientific 
document known to us. Its content has proved to be an epoch-making revelation, 
and the Institute is preparing the translation and final scientific publication for the 
New York Historical Society. A fuller account of the plans and activities of the 
Institute and the scope of its work will be found in its first Communication’ issued 
last year. 

The researches and discoveries recorded in this volume were made possible solely 
by the generous support of the Oriental Institute by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 
The second volume of this series, entitled The Annals of Sennacherib, by Professor 
D. D. Luckenbill, is already on the press. It will contain all Sennacherib’s records, 
including a full publication of the superb prism obtained by our expedition of 
1919-20. It is an agreeable privilege to express here, on behalf of the members 
of the Institute, our sincere appreciation of the liberal contributions which have 
enabled us to begin this series of volumes as a tangible evidence of the debt of 
science to the founder of the Oriental Institute. 

It is a matter of gratification to its members that the first volume of a series to be 
known as the Oriental Institute Publications? should contain these materials which so 
unequivocally illustrate the process of culture transition from the Orient to Europe. 
The recognition of this transition is daily revealing to modern men that there is no 
sharp cleavage between the Near Orient and Europe. The successive rise of both 
from prehistoric savagery has been one evolutionary process, the recovery of which will 
enable us to write the coherent and unified story of mankind. Writing these words, 
as I do, overlooking the hills of Tuscany but a few hours away from Ravenna, and 
contemplating the roofs and towers of Florence spread out below this historic villa 
where it is believed by many that Boccaccio found the scene of his immortal 
Decamerone tales, it seems peculiarly fitting that these prefatory words should be 
penned in the midst of surroundings which reveal at every turn how great a part 
in the revival of. European culture was played by the men of Tuscany. For the art 
which developed so richly here in Florence, and especially the art of painting, was 
based to no small extent upon that of Byzantium, of which we must evidently recognize 


the ancestry in the wall paintings of Dura. 
JAMES HENRY BREASTED 
VILLA PALMIERI 
FLORENCE, ITALY 
June 1, 1923 


1 Oriental Institute Communications No. 1 (to be abbreviated as O.I.C. 1). University of Chicago 
Press, Chicago, 1922. 


2 This series may be referred to as O.J,P. I, ete. 








TABLE OF CONTENTS 


‘ PAGE 
INTRODUCTION BY FRANZ CUMONT. ; : ‘ 5 , f i : ‘ 15 
I. Tae History or Dura-SAuiniyag . : é ; tpl 
II. Toe Discovery or THE DurA-SALIniyAH PAINTINGS é : : Ay 
Ill. Tae Crry anp Fortress or Dura . ; : ? ; : : ' 62 
IV. Tue Tempe or Zeus-Baat 8N THE Fortress oF Dura . : : : 2 68 
V. THe WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE . j f ; : 15 
Hau II, Sout Watt, C-D (Plates VIIJ-XIX) 4 ‘ : LO 

Hatt II, West Wat1, D-E (Plate XX, 1) : ‘ ; : . 88 

Hatt II, East Watt, B-C (Plate VIII) . ; " 2 ORs ev: : 24-89 

Hauu I, NortH Watt (Plate X XT) : : P . . 94 


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
PLATES 


PLATE 
I. Fortress oF SALInfyaH 


1. Looking Southwest in Northwest Wadi 
2. Gate near Middle of Southwest Wall 
II. Fortress or SAuIniyAn 
1. Looking Northwest along Southwest Wall 
2. View along Inside of Same Wall 
III. Fortress or SALmiyan 
1. Inside View Looking East along Massive Castellum and North Wall 
2. Northwest Angle of Castellum 
IV. Fortress oF SAuIniyAn 
1. Outside View of North End of Castellum, Looking East 
2. Northwest Bastion of the Castellum, Looking Northeast to the Euphrates 
V. Fortress or SALIHTYAH 
1. Cross-Section of Wall, Showing Evidences of Two Structural Stages 
2. Outside View of Extreme West Angle Containing Chapel, Looking Southeast 
VI. Fortress or SALIBTYAH 


1. Outside View of Extreme West Angle Containing Chapel, Looking West 
2. Shrine in Hall II, Looking Southwest 


VII. Caape. or SAuIniyAH 
1. The Two Columns at West Side of Court 
2. Steps Leading into North End of Hall II 
VIII. Tue WatL or Bironanata IN Hatt II 
GENERAL VIEW (Color Plate) 
IX. Tae WALL or BiTHnaAnatrA IN HAtt II 
Tue THREE MInistrants (Color Plate) 


X. THE WAtL or BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II 
HEAD OF THE SECOND Figure (Color Plate, frontispiece) 


XI. Tar WALL or BITHNANAIA IN Haut II 
BITHNANAIA AND Her Group (Color Plate) 


XII. Tae Watt or Birananata In Hatt II 
HAD oF THE SEcoND Figure, SHowine INsJury To Lerr Eye (RESTORED IN PLATE X) 


XIII. Tae Wat or Birxananata In Hatt II 
Tur THREE MINISTRANTS 
11 


XVII. 
XVIII. 
XIX. 


XX, 


XXI. 
Xoo 


XXIII. 


MAPS 


ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


. THe WALL oF BITHNANAIA IN Hatt IT 


BITHNANAIA AND HER Group 


. Tue WALL oF BITHNANAIA IN Haut II 


Upper Part or FIGURE OF BITHNANAIA 


. Tae WALL or BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II 


Rieut Enp: THE Four MEN witH GREEN BRANCHES 


Tue WALL or BITHNANAIA IN Hatt II 
Nints FiGure, THE First Boy In THE FOREGROUND 


THe WALL or Birananala IN Hatt IT 
Trento FiGurE, THE GIRL IN THE FOREGROUND 


Tae WALL or BiTHnanalA IN Hatt II 
ELEVENTH FIGURE, THE SECOND Boy IN THE FOREGROUND 


CHAPEL OF SALIH{YAH 


1. West Wall of Hall II with Desert West of Fortress on Right 
2. Partly Excavated North Wall of Court, Looking Northeast to the Plain of Khana- 
Mari 


Tuer WALL OF THE TRIBUNE 


Srxtu-Century Mosaics 1N THE BasILica oF 8. VITALE AT RAVENNA 


1. Emperor Justinian with Bishop Maximian and Suite 
2. Empress Theodora and Suite 


SYRIAN RELIEFS 


1. Priest Offering Sacrifice to the God Bel 
2. Mortuary Relief from Palmyra 


MAPS 


PAGE 


1. WesteRN, AsIA, SHOWING THE ROUTE OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE EXPEDITION OF 
1919-20 AND THE SITUATION OF DURA AND THE PLAIN oF KHana-Mari following 20 


2. THe Puain oF KHAna-Mari . : 40 2 eid aa, ae following 24 


oo :SSr 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 13 


TEXT FIGURES 


PAGE 


1. TyprcaL View or EuPHRATES VALLEY IMMEDIATELY ABOVE ‘SANAH ’ 4 hienoe 
2. TypicAL WALL OF THE DESERT PLATEAU ALONG THE EUPHRATES . : “ieee 
3. TypicAL Desert Vauipy ‘Want’ on Ricut BANK oF EUPHRATES BELOW DEIR EZ- 
DOR, (2 ; : : y : : : : ; ; ; : ; ; ; . 24 
4. Mopern Hit, tHe Cuassicau Is, tHe ANCIENT SOURCE OF BiruMEN . ....._—_ 25 
5. THE BriruMEN Basin aT HIT. ; 3 , : : ‘ ; : ; : ; A p45 
6. A Brrumen WELL aT Hit. : ; ; ' AOE 
7. Lookine up THE EuPpHRATES AT HApDiTHAH ‘ é ees 
8. Scanty FIELDS ALONG THE EUPHRATES Two MILes aBove Hapiruan. : . ae 
9. IRRIGATION WATER WHEEL IN THE HUPHRATES AT HApDiTHAH : , . - 80 
10. THE VALLEY OF THE EUPHRATES AT ‘ANAH tly 2h ; d j [ JMS 
11. ISLAND CULTIVATION IN THE EUPHRATES AT SANAH . ; ; a Oe, 
12. TAMARISK THICKETS ALONG THE HUPHRATES AT EL-KAIm ; , Wh eda 
13. THE EUPHRATES AT TIBNI . : ; ‘ ; , ‘ : 7 $00 
14. Toe EvpHRATES VALLEY AT HALABIYAH  . : . ; y : Ae) ook 
15. UNCULTIVABLE TAMARISK THICKETS ALONG THE EUPHRATES AT SABKHAH . ee SG 
16. Tor EvpHRatTEs AT MESKENAH . ; : : : : ; : ; : od 
17. Tot EUPHRATES AND THE PLAIN OF DEIR Bz-ZOR_ ; we oS 
18. THe PLAIN AND City oF DEIR 52-Z6rR. i ; ! : ; ( 39 
19. SHEEP FEEDING ON THE UNCULTIVATED TRACTS OF THE DEIR EZ-ZOR PLAIN . 40 
20. A Woot CARAVAN IN THE STREETS OF DEIR Ez-ZOR. : ; ; } : . Al 
21. Across THE Roors oF DEIR Ez-ZOR : : ; , : ’ : ye eZ 
22. THe BrinGce at Derr £z-Zor. ; : ; ; ; , eas 
23. A CoRNER OF DEIR EZ-ZOR AND THE GARDENS ON THE ISLAND. ; . 44 
24. AraB Boys or DEIR 5z-ZOR . ; é ? ; : : : . : 2° +45 
25. Mpyapin AND THE PLAIN oF KHANA-MaARI ! : : 4 ; ’ . 46 
26. THE ARID PLAIN or KHANA-MARI AND THE PLATEAU Horizon : ; . AT 


27. Tar EUPHRATES AND THE PLAIN oF KHANA-MARI FROM THE PLATEAU AT SALINiYAH 48 


28. GLIMPSE OF THE BAZAARS IN BAGHDAD : ; ; { ; : ; 5 : 49 
29. Tur Brings or Boats OVER THE TIGRIS AND PALM GROVES AT BAGHDAD . ; 50 
30. British GUNBOAT ON THE LOWER EUPHRATES AT FALLUJAH . p ’ : : 54 


31. Tur SEvEN Cars oF OuR CARAVAN BETWEEN FALLOJAH AND RAMADI ON THE LOWER 
EUPHRATES : : : s : : : : 3 : ; ¥ 5 ‘ . ; 55 


32. BEGINNING OF THE PLATEAU ABOVE RAMADI AND BELOW Hirt. . : : ; 56 


14 


53. 
54. 


55. 
56. 
57. 
58. 


ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Our Cars STALLED NEAR HapiTHAH IN A DESOLATE STRETCH BETWEEN HIT AND 
CANAH. 


. Our British Convoy Hattine at NAHTYAH JUST ABOVE ‘ANAH 
. CAMELS OF THE BritisH Miuirary TRANSPORT BELOW ALBU KAMAL 


. British HEADQUARTERS AT ALBU KAMAL 


STARTING FOR AN AIRPLANE HXAMINATION OF THE KHANA-MARI PLAIN 


Our Wacons DRAWN UP FOR DEPARTURE FROM THE FORTRESS OF DURA 


. OuR Wacons LoApING FoR DEPARTURE FROM Mzyapin, AFTER THE First Day’s 


Marcu 


. SHEIKH RAMADAN-Bue [pn SHALLASH AND A Group oF His TRIBESMEN OF THE ALBU 


SARAI ABOVE DEIR Ez-ZOR 


. A Group or ARAB RIFLEMEN OF SHEIKH RamMADAN-Bgc IBN SHALLASH 


Tue Heap or OuR CARAVAN DESCENDING FROM THE PLATEAU TO THE HUPHRATES 
NEAR TIBNI 


. OuR WAGONS IN THE KHAN AT SABKHAH 


. SHEIKH SuwAN OF THE SABKHAH ARABS ABOVE DEIR §Ez-ZOR ON THE UPPER 


EUPHRATES 


. Our Horses BEING WATERED IN THE EUPHRATES FOR THE Last TIME, ABOVE M&s- 


KENAH, Two Days’ JoURNEY FROM ALEPPO 


. MopERN ALEPPO AND THE MounpD oF THE ANCIENT CITY 


. THE Court oF A Mosque IN ALEPPO . 


Tur VALLEY OF THE ORONTES IN NorTH SyRIA. 


Tur WELCOME MEDITERRANEAN SHORES Nort oF BEIROT . 


. Recorps oF MopERN CONQUEST AMONG THE MEMORIALS OF ANCIENT CONQUERORS 


ON THE MEDITERRANEAN CLIFFS AT THE DoG River Norts or Berrtr 


GENERAL CUNNINGHAM WITH OFFICERS AND Part oF OuR EXPEDITION AT THE SOUTH- 
wEst GATE oF THE DurRA FORTRESS 


Our CAMP IN THE ANCIENT FortTRESS OF DuRA 
Our First GLIMPSE OF THE PAINTINGS 


British Hast Inp1an TRoops at Our DISPOSITION FOR HWXCAVATING THE GROUND 
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE IN THE ANCIENT FortTRESS OF DuRA 


AIRPLANE VIEW OF THE ANCIENT Fortress or DuRA-SALIHfYAH . 
PLAN OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE IN THE FortTRESS OF DURA 
CoLuarR, NECKLACE, AND PECTORAL ORNAMENTS OF THE Lapy BITHNANAIA 


INSCRIPTIONS ON THE WALL oF BITHNANAIA 


PAGE 


101 





INTRODUCTION 
By FRANZ CUMONT 


The discovery of which Mr. Breasted gives an account in the following pages is 
one whose importance can hardly be exaggerated. It throws a vivid light upon 
numerous questions of which science still awaits the solution. It raises also new and 
perplexing questions, and it may be predicted that it will provoke abundant com- 
mentary. In these preliminary remarks, I would like simply to indicate briefly in 
what particulars it especially deserves our attention. 

In the first place, this discovery is of great interest for our knowledge of the 
political history of ancient Syria. It furnishes us with authentic proof that the 
Romans established a military stronghold in a region which we have not heretofore 
known to have been permanently occupied by the legions. A massive fortress com- 
manded the passage of the Euphrates at the point where the route from Palmyra 
crossed the river (see p. 26). This post was the most advanced of all those which 
are known along its banks. To what epoch must we carry back the establishment of 
a Roman garrison at Sdlihiyah? It is certainly not to be dated before the conquests 
of Trajan. Before the reign of this emperor neither Palmyra nor Damascus nor 
Petra were subject to the imperial legates, and the desert of Syria was left outside the 
limits of their jurisdiction. But after the reduction of Mesopotamia to the condition 
of a province (114-16), Rome necessarily experienced the need of holding a strategic 
position which up to that time had been without value to her. The troops stationed 
there were able to assure the communications across the desert with the newly annexed 
territory, and to guard the transports descending the Euphrates against the enterprises 
of pillaging Arabs. Nevertheless, the occupation of Mesopotamia by Trajan was 
only ephemeral. Hadrian abandoned it immediately after the death of his predecessor 
and we do not know whether he constructed a fortress here, as he did elsewhere, for 
guarding the frontier and observing the hostile country on the other shore. It is 
therefore possible that the fortress of Sdlihtyah is subsequent to the expedition of 
Lucius Verus against the Parthians (162-65), or even to that of Septimius Severus 
(197-99).! It was only then that a large portion of Mesopotamia became definitely 
Roman. 

There is the same uncertainty as to the duration of the occupation. While 
awaiting new excavations we can do no more than suggest hypotheses as to the circum- 
stances by which it was terminated. But we know that Dura was desert in the time 

1 This was written before the date of the paintings was established. Their date has important 
bearing on the date of the fortress. See pp. 88 and 64-65.—J. H. B. 

15 


16 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


of Constantine (p. 48). It is probable that it had been abandoned when Diocletian 
fixed the frontier of the Empire at the course of the Khabtr and fortified Circesium 
at its mouth. It was at this time, one might suppose, that the legionaries evacuated 
their camp in the forsaken town.! None of the places mentioned in the Notitia 
Dignitatum (Or. xxxii) seems to be identifiable with Salihtyah. 

The paintings of Salihtyah have even greater value for the history of religion 
than has the castle for political history. The scene (Plate VIII), in which one sees 
the family of Konon assisting at a double sacrifice offered by two Syrian priests, is 
unique in its kind and all its details will deserve to be studied. I confine myself 
here to a few rapid remarks. 

The two celebrants are clad in white robes and wear conical caps of the same color. 
This headdress, which seems to be of Hittite origin, and the long robe gathered at the 
waist, appear like those of the king, Abd-Hadad, pictured sacrificing as far back as 
the fourth century before our era on the coins of Hierapolis, and Lucian informs us 
that in his time the priests of that city? were clad in a garment all of white, and that 
they wore on the head the z7?dos,’ that is to say, a felt cap of conical shape. In a 
bas-relief from Ciliza on the north of Aleppo, the priest Gaios appears after the same 
fashion making an offering to the god Bel for himself and his family, exactly as at 
Sdlihtyah. The tall white cap has, furthermore, remained to the present day as 
part of the costume of the dervishes. 

In the same way the nakedness of the feet, which distinguishes the two officiants 
from the mere assistants, reminds us of the Old Testament and of Islam. ‘‘Take the 
shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground,” commands 
the voice which speaks to Moses from the burning bush,® and the interpreters of this 
verse see in it the origin of the obligation imposed on the priests, of fulfilling the cere- 
monies of the cult and of offering sacrifice with bare feet.6 In reality the custom of 
removing the shoes before entering the temple is derived from the practice still common 
in the Orient, of removing them at the door of the house in order to avoid defiling the 
interior with mud and filth, and the Jewish proscription of shoes is likewise found in 
many cults of antiquity.’ It is common knowledge that even today the Moslems 
still demand this mark of respect of all who cross the threshold of a mosque. 

1 This conjecture has been confirmed by Cumont’s further excavations.—J. H. B. 

2 Babelon, Monnaies de la Bibliotheque nationale. Perses Achéménides, 1893, Plate LIII; Dussaud, 
Notes de mythol. syrienne, p. 97. Cf. my Htudes syriennes, 1917, p. 261. 

§ Lucian, De Dea Syriae, ¢. 42: ’EoOis 5¢ abréowst raca \evk} Kal wtdov emi rH Kepadf Exovow. 

4 tudes syriennes, p. 257. 

5 Exod. 3:5; ef. Vigouroux, Dict. de la Bible, s.v. ‘“Chaussures,”’ p. 634. 

6 Theodoret, Ad Ex. quaest., 7 (Patrologia graeca, LX XX, p. 231): Tupvots tepets root ras Necroupylas 
éreréedouv Kal Tas Bvaias. 


7 Notably in that of the Great Mother (Prudentius, Peristeph., X, 154 ff.). Cf. Graillot, Culte de 
Cybele, 1912, p. 139, n. 3. Some other examples are cited by Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, p. 912. 


INTRODUCTION 17 


We are reminded of still another ceremony of Judaism by the branch or palm 
carried in the left hand by the four men, while they raise the right hand as a sign of 
adoration.! It naturally suggests comparison with the lulab,? a bouquet composed 
of a palm and twigs of myrtle and willow carried by the Jews at the Feast of 
Tabernacles, which was an ancient agricultural feast of the vintage. At the present 
day the branches of myrtle and willow are still distributed to the assistants at the 
feasts of the Nosairis, and an analogous custom exists among the ?Ahle Haqq of 
Kurdistan.’ 

The ceremony depicted on the wall of the chapel (Plate VIII) is exceedingly 
curious. At one side a priest who holds a ewer plunges a plant into a vase filled with 
water. This water is probably that of the Euphrates,‘ a sacred river already invoked 
in the ancient litanies at Babylon, whose waters were prescribed in preference to all 
others and were as holy as those of the Nile in Egypt. Beside this priest, a second 
makes an offering on an altar, whereon a fire is burning. We find here united the 
cults of the two opposed elements; for the adoration of the elements, and in particular 
that of water and fire, is characteristic of the religion of Mesopotamia in the Roman 
period as it was practiced by the ‘‘Chaldeans” or the Magi, and it is this worship 
which the polemic of the Christian apologists especially attacks.® 

It is surprising to find this ceremony, wholly oriental—as is also the plan of the 
temple according to the remark of Mr. Breasted—close by the other, wholly Roman, 
of the tribune offering sacrifice to the emperors® before his legionaries and in the 
presence of the flag—a picture which calls up before our eyes with a vivacity singularly 
striking a scene from the life of the Roman military camps such as learned research 
enabled us to reconstruct in thought. How could these two cults fundamentally 
so different coexist in the same chapel?’ The explanation which first suggests itself 
to one’s mind is that the garrison of SAlihtyah was made up of legionaries and a nwmerus 


1 This gesture, of which Mr. Breasted has given the significance (p. 85), is found also in Syria, 
for example on one of the stelae of Nerab (at the Museum of the Louvre). 

2 Cf. Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘‘Lulab.” 

3 Dussaud, Les Nosaires, p. 89 ff.; Minorsky, Notes sur la secte des >Ahlé-Haqq, p.93. Paris, 1922. 

4 On the cult of the Euphrates in the Roman epoch and the use of its waters, cf. Etudes syriennes, 
pp. 251 ff. 

5 Cf. my Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystéres de Mithra, I, 105 (n. 1), 108. The 
mysteries of Mithra drew this cult of the elements from the religion of Babylonia. 

6 As M. Cumont in agreement with Clermont-Ganneau now holds, the statues depicted in the 
paintings are militarized Syrian gods and not emperors, a conclusion with which I agree.—J. H. B. 

7 This is true of an epoch well anterior to that of Odenathus and Zenobia. M. Réné Dussaud 
calls my attention to an inscription of Palmyra (Répertoire d’épigr. sémit., I, 285) which is a dedication 
made in 132 by a Nabatean cavalryman in the camp of <Anah. This camp is situated on the Euphrates, 
down-river from Dura, and was undoubtedly abandoned by the Romans along with the rest of Mesopo- 
tamia in 117. The Nabatean cavalryman must have been in the service of Palmyra, which was 
holding <Anah on the caravan route. 


18 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Palmyrenorum, and that the former worshiped the deified Caesars according to Roman 
rite, and the latter according to Syrian rite. But the ceremony portrayed on the 
wall of Bithnanaia contains nothing of a military nature. The head of the family 
causes it to be celebrated in the presence of his descendants. His daughter and 
granddaughter assist in it, as do his sons and grandsons. It is a family sacrifice on 
the part of some powerful house, not an official sacrifice on the part of migratory 
soldiers in the service of the Empire. We are also led to suppose that the Romans 
took possession of a native sanctuary in existence prior to their arrival, and that they 
set up therein the cult of the Emperor by building there the isolated shrine which must 
have contained the statue of the prince and the standards of the garrison (pp. 70-71). 
But then we are not obliged to assign the same date to the two compositions, one of 
which adorns the first and the other the second room, and the Roman decoration of 
the latter would be later than that at the back of the chapel. If one might be allowed 
to hazard a guess in a question still buried in such obscurity, one would be tempted 
to assign the first painting to the epoch of the autonomy of Palmyra when her authority 
extended as far as the Euphrates. Konon must have been some chief of a tribe in 
subjection to the great city. The second painting would, on the contrary, date from 
the time when the Romans were occupying Saélihtyah and commanded the respect of 
the desert Arabs. We are thus again confronted by the question of chronology upon 
which we touched at the outset.! 

In spite of all thejr historical and religious interest, the surprisimg works which 
Mr. Breasted has analyzed with such minute precision would seem above all of especial 
value for the history of art. Though we know Alexandrine painting relatively well, by 
means of the Pompeian frescoes, which sprang directly out of them, and though Egypt 
has furnished us by means of her mummies a considerable number of portraits, never- 
theless up to the present time we have had only a very vague idea of what Graeco- 
Syrian painting might have been like. We are hardly able to study it in more than 
the decoration of a few tombs, of which the most remarkable is the one which 
Dr. Sobernheim has photographed at Palmyra.? The paintings recovered by M. Alois 
Musil in the castle of ‘Amra, in Arabia Petraea,’ belong to the epoch of the Omayyad 
Caliphs, and they give us but a poor idea of what must have been those of antiquity. 
For the first time we find here at Dura large compositions enabling us to grasp the 
process employed by Graeco-Syrian artists in drawing and grouping their figures. 


1 The inscriptions since found by Cumont place the two paintings here discussed at two widely 
separated dates: the ceremony of Plate VIII in the first century, and that of the tribune in the early 
third century.—J. H. B. 


2Last published in Djemal Pasha’s collection, Alte Denkmdler aus Syrien, Paldstina und 
Westarabien, Plate 68. Berlin, 1918. Cf. Etudes syriennes. 


3 Alois Musil, Kusejr <Amra (published by the Academy of Vienna), 1907. The Dominicans of 
Jerusalem will give us shortly some new reproductions of these curious paintings. 








INTRODUCTION 19 


In the detail of their clothing and their ornaments, these figures display close 
relationships with those of the Palmyrene sculpture. Such a woman as the one whose 
image has been preserved on a sepulchral stone seems to be a twin sister of Bithnanaia, 
her head dressed with a similar embroidered toque, her person enveloped by the same 
veil and laden with the same jewelry (Pl. XXIII, 2).!_ But the paintings of Sdlihtyah 
in the matter of technique are quite superior to the ordinary products of Palmyrene 
funereal sculpture. Once having cast one’s eyes upon him, one will not soon forget the 
serious expression, the look of ecstasy of the sacrificing priest, and his bronzed face in 
which the ethnical characteristics are drawn with a touch so sure that one might be 
looking upon the portrait of some Beduin chieftain encountered in the bazaar at 
Damascus. 

Mr. Breasted has already noted the resemblance of these pictorial works to the 
mosaics at Ravenna. Figures seen from the front, ranged in one line, their feet 
resting so insecurely on the ground as to give the impression of floating in the air, 
all these special points are common to certain Byzantine compositions and to our 
paintings. We may be certain that these documents of capital importance which 
have just been furnished to us will henceforth be constantly called upon whenever 
the complex question of the oriental origins of the art of the Middle Ages is under 
consideration. 

One last question presents itself. Why was this sumptuous decoration executed 
in the modest chapel of a fort? 

Should one believe that the custom of covering walls with frescos was, in Syria, 
so widespread that even in a house hidden away in the desert there was the desire to 
embellish its walls with such ornamentation? Or did some special reason here really 
justify an unwonted luxury? M. Clermont-Ganneau, who has offered us in the study 
of this enigmatical problem the benefit of his ever ingenious learning, has at this 
point advanced a suggestion which deserves being taken into serious consideration. 
Near Dura, which, as has been noted, is situated on the Euphrates opposite Saélihtyah, 
there was enacted a great historical drama. In 244 at this place the young emperor 
Gordian III was treacherously assassinated by an officer of his own army, a man 
whom the biographers of the Caesars call Philip the Arab. This artful Beduin caused 
divine honors to be rendered to his victim and his remains to be taken to Rome; but 
the soldiers, in memory of the leader whom they had just lost, set up a monumental 
cenotaph on the spot where he had perished. ‘This tomb, ‘‘visible from afar,’’? which 
must therefore have been placed upon an eminence, was situated between Zaitha and 
Dura, and was still in existence in the time of Julian, who, as he descended the left 


i Unpublished bas-relief of the Louvre (A.O. 2198) of which M. Réné Dussaud has kindly had a 
photograph made for us. Compare Clermont-Ganneau, Htudes d’archéologie orientale, I, 112 ff. 
M. Gabriel Millet has pointed out to me another statue whose ornaments resemble those of our 
paintings, Marshall, Catalogue of Jewellery, p. 320. 


20 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


bank of the Euphrates, presented funeral offerings there.t May we concede that this 
sepulcher, where rites were practiced in behalf of the deceased emperor, was in reality 
situated on the other side of the river at Salihtyah? Or at least, must one believe 
that a memorial of the tragic death which had occurred in the vicinity, in the territory 
which had once again become Persian, was celebrated in a sort of expiatory chapel in 
the Roman camp nearest at hand? Does the name Kan-kaleh, ‘“‘House of Blood,” 
which the fortress bears in Turkish, preserve an echo of the murder perpetrated in 
its neighborhood and recalled by the annual ceremonies within its walls? These 
are hypotheses which only further excavations can verify or disprove. 

One needs must hope that the pacification of the country will permit of undertaking 
excavations which will bring to light all the paintings of this ‘‘House of Blood.” 
Under the most unfavorable of circumstances Mr. Breasted, with his collaborators, 
has secured such an account as one would hardly have expected could be obtained 
in a single day, and we owe him warm appreciation for the revelations which he brings 
us. But the task now presents itself of completing his investigation and making 
known in its entirety the extraordinary monument which will henceforth make famous 
the name of Saélihtyah.? 

1The position of this tomb cannot be established with absolute certainty. Zosimus (iii. 14) 
states that it was at Dura; Ammianus (xxiii. 5. 7), that upon arrival at Zaitha one saw ‘‘Gordiani 
imperatoris longe conspicuum tumulum’’; Eutropius (ix. 2. 3), on the contrary, the place to be 
‘‘vigesimo milliario a Circesso”’; but it is probable that he is giving the distance from the station 
at Zaitha, indicated in the itineraries, instead of that of the neighboring tomb. For other, still less 
precise references, cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s.v. “Antonius,” No. 60, col. 2627. [The inscriptions 
afterward excavated by Cumont have shown that Clermont-Ganneau’s suggestion is not tenable.— 
ds 1GL Jey} 


2 As above noted, M. Cumont has begun with the greatest success the continuation of the excava- 
tions which circumstances have not permitted the Oriental Institute to carry further.—J. H. B. 





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46 48 


WESTERN ASIA 


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UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO EXPEDITION. 
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DURA AND KHANA-MARI 


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36 


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THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH AND THE MID- 
EUPHRATES KINGDOM OF KHANA-MARI 


The northern extension of the Arabian Desert, which we commonly call the 
Syrian or the Syro-Mesopotamian Desert, reaches a latitude about that of the northern 
shores of the Mediterranean. ‘This desert shoulder thus thrust northward separates 
the eastern shores and adjacent territory of the eastern Mediterranean (Syria-Palestine) 
on the one hand very completely from the world of the two rivers, the Tigris and 
Euphrates, on the other. This geographical barrier of the Syro-Mesopotamian Desert 
has always caused a political and cultural cleavage, though it has never been an imper- 
vious barrier, because cultural influences have been able to cross or go around its north- 
ern end, like the armies which were so often the expression of political power. In this 
desert region the Euphrates in its westernmost course approaches to a point about 100 
miles from the northeast corner of the Mediterranean. Thence it turns southeastward 
toward the Persian Gulf. Its southward and southeastward course through the 
Syro-Mesopotamian and then through the Arabian Desert has been the path of many 
a western army leaving the Mediterranean world and endeavoring to reach that of 
Babylon and Nineveh, the region now popularly called Mesopotamia, which did not 
originally extend to the Persian Gulf or include the Babylonian plain. But such a 
march down the Euphrates across the desert was a difficult and dangerous enterprise. 
It is no accident that the successors of Alexander in Syria and Asia Minor early lost 
the Tigro-Euphrates world beyond the Syrian Desert; nor that the Roman Empire 
definitely relinquished this region and placed the eastern frontier at the Euphrates. 

As a result of this strategic situation a stretch of some 250 to 300 miles of the course 
of the Euphrates, from a point below Carchemish-Jerablis (near where the river is 
closest to the Mediterranean) down to the vicinity of ‘Anah, formed a kind of inter- 
mediate fringe lying between the Mediterranean world on the west and that of the 
two rivers, or Mesopotamia and Babylonia, on the east. This stretch of Euphrates, 
therefore, was sometimes held by Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, or Parthia as a western 
frontier, and again by a western power like that of the Macedonians or Romans as 
its eastern frontier. Its alternating political connection is suggestive also of the 
commingling of cultural elements in this region, which in its civilization clearly 
betrayed influences received from both East and West. The composite civilization 
which thus grew up along this stretch of Euphrates, like the political history of the 
region, is little known; and the discoveries resulting from the work of the University 

21 


22 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


of Chicago Expedition and the mission of M. Franz Cumont have demonstrated the 
fundamental importance of exploration and excavation among the ruins which still 
survive there. 

The plateau of the Syro-Mesopotamian Desert has many points of resemblance 
to the Sahara Desert plateau of Northern and Northeastern Africa, of which indeed 
the great deserts of Western Asia are the geological continuation on the Asiatic side 
of the Red and Mediterranean seas. Entering the Syro-Mesopotamian Desert from 
the north, as we have noted, at about the latitude of Aleppo, the Euphrates has never 
succeeded in eroding a valley of continuous breadth. It is in some stretches a narrow 
defile or canyon; again the valley expands to a width of some miles. Throughout 





Fig. 1.—Typicat View or EUPHRATES VALLEY IMMEDIATELY ABOVE ‘ANAH 


Plateau cliffs dropping to the water on opposite (Mesopotamian) side; narrow cultivated strip 
between river and cliffs on near side. 


all the desert course of the Euphrates, however, its valley never widens so as to create 
an alluvial’ floor of cultivable soil sufficiently extensive to furnish the agricultural 
basis for sustaining a large population, as in Egypt above the Nile delta; or for a 
corresponding development of culture and of stable political power. For stretches of 
many miles the cliffs drop almost to the water’s edge, and in such places there is 
absolutely no population at all. Of the region between ‘Anah (Fig. 10) and El-Kaim 
(Fig. 12) the engineer Cernik, who passed through it in 1872, says: “Hs ist soviel als 
gar nicht bewohnt.”! We made the same observation on our journey through this 
district in 1920. The series of Euphrates views distributed through this discussion 
will serve to demonstrate this character of the Euphrates Valley better than an 
elaborate geographical description. After three typical glimpses of the Euphrates 


i Cernik, Technische Studien-Expedition durch die Gebiete des Euphrat und Tigris. Erginzungs- 
heft No. 44 zu Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 1875. 


a 


ee 


_— 


THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 23 


(Figs. 1-3), the views begin at Hit (Fig. 4), where the alluvial plain of the lower 
Euphrates practically ends as you ascend the river, and moving upstream they show 
a series of characteristic points as far upriver as Meskenah (Fig. 16), where the road 
from Baghdad to Aleppo leaves the Euphrates. 

Omitting smaller and less important areas of cultivation, where there is a very 
limited expansion of the valley floor, there are two chief regions where the alluvial 
plain is of such proportions as to permit a cultural development of some importance. 
These are the district of ‘Anah about 180 miles above Baghdad, and the plain below 
Deir ez-Zér, some 320 miles from Baghdad, that is about midway between this city 
and the Mediterranean. We are dealing in this book with the latter of these two 





Fic. 2.—TypicaL WALL OF THE DrserT PLATEAU ALONG THE HUPHRATES 


Arid floor of the Euphrates Valley and a part of our caravan in foreground 


districts, the plain below Deir ez-Zér, the modern metropolis of the middle Euphrates 
region. We shall hereafter refer to this town as Deir. With some interruptions from 
intrusive promontories of the plateau, this plain extends for about 75 to 80 miles 
southeastward of Deir. In width it varies from nothing at all to a maximum of some 
35 kilometers, about 22 miles; but by no means all of this maximum width is cultivable 
alluvium. Around Meyadin the grassy plain extends at one place some 25 miles 
westward and furnishes grazing in spring for the flocks, herds, and mares of the 
Anazah Arabs; but the cultivation never extended so far. Somewhat over 10 miles 
below Deir the plateau thrusts forward to the river for several miles on the west side 


24 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


opposite the mouth of the Khabir, while on the east the Mesopotamian Desert sends 
out the tip of a tongue of mountains in a long promontory which completely fills the 
interval between the parallel channels of the Euphrates and its tributary the Khabtr 
coming in from the north and east. The heights on each side of the Euphrates here 
form a narrow defile, and it was this strategically strong gateway which the Romans 
selected as the most easily defended frontier barrier of the Empire on the east. Here, 
therefore, on the east side of the Euphrates, at the tip of the above-mentioned narrow 
promontory, between the Euphrates and the Khabfir, Diocletian built the frontier 





Fre. 3.—Tyricatn Desert VAuury ‘Wapbt” on RicgHT BANK OF EUPHRATES BELOW Derr Ez-Z6r 


Part of our caravan climbing to the top of the plateau because the desert cliffs left no room for 
passing along the river bank below. 


fortress of Circesium toward the end of the third century of our era. This narrow 
defile at Circesium cuts off the northern district of the plain for some 10 miles below 
Deir, and the intrusive plateau cliffs occupy several miles more. The remainder of 
the plain stretches southward from the defile at Circesium on the north in a coherent 
whole along the river for something like 55 to 60 miles to modern Albu Kamal on the 
south.? 

This plain from below the Circesium defile, that is, from the mouth of the Khabar, 
to Albu Kamal, never in Graeco-Roman days received any name which has descended 


1 Exact measurements along the windings of the river are not available. The measurements 
given follow the general trend of the plain. 














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PLAIN OF KHANA- MARI 














AND | os : : ; Irzi, TW”? tHE ‘a 
DURA-SALIHIYAH | ROR eT 
Scale of Miles mam Shave obo S 
i0 15 20 Aasr e/- Kain » ah Hy 
30° Al 


Map 2.—The Plain of Khana-Mari 














THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 25 


to us; -nor have the Moslems ever given it a designation, political or geographical, 
which has become current. It is difficult, therefore, to refer to it in terms intelligible 
to the reader, for modern historians have likewise failed to give it a name. Indeed, 
enveloped as this region is in the heart of the Syro-Mesopotamian Desert, few historians 
are acquainted with it, and fewer still have ever seen it. For reasons which will be 
evident as we proceed, we shall call this plain “‘Khana-Mari,” a term compounded of 
two names which were evidently the earliest to be applied to the region or to parts 
of it, in so far as we know. 

The river wanders for the most part along the western edge of the river “‘ bottoms,” 
so that the plain of Khana-Mari lies chiefly on the east side of the Euphrates (Fig. 17). 
This leaves its eastern portion far from the river, and at an early date advantage was 
taken of the fact that the northern boundary of the plain is the Khabar. From this 





Fic. 4.—Mopern Hirt, tap Cuassican Is, tae ANCIENT SOURCE OF BITUMEN 


tributary an irrigation canal was dug along the eastern boundary of the plain to the 
Euphrates at El-Werdi (see Map 2), where the Mesopotamian plateau advances 
to the river in a lofty promontory to form the southern boundary of the plain.1 The 
plain falls into two districts, the result of a natural division caused by the advance of 
the western plateau to the river, not far south of the middle of the plain. This salience 
of the western desert pushes forward directly to the margin of the river for nearly 14 
miles, and for some 9 miles the rock walls of the plateau escarpment fall sheer almost 
to the water’s edge. On the west side of the Euphrates, therefore, the plain is com- 
pletely cut in two; on the east side there is no such division. This intrusion of the 


1 See Gertrude L. Bell, From Amurath to Amurath, pp. 78 and 82; Sarre-Herzfeld, Archdologische 
Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, II, 387. While we are not able to date the origin of this canal 
with precision, the early history of the plain would indicate that it was in existence before the Moslem 
Age and probably in old Assyrian and Babylonian days. 


26 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


plateau on the west side reduces essentially the cultivable area of the plain, but in 
its maximum length of 60 miles it may have included at times as much as 400 square 
miles of cultivated fields—an area equal to a good-sized American county. 

With relation to the larger world of the Near East as a whole, Khana-Mari occupied 
a favorable strategic position, in spite of its situation in the heart of a desert, separated 
on all sides by hundreds of miles of waterless waste from the nearest communities 
of men (see Map 1). It was a veritable island in the sandy ocean. One line of 
connection, however, was the river itself, which furnished a highway to Babylonia 
on the southeast and to Asia Minor and Armenia on the northwest and north—not a 
navigable highway to be sure, but at least a desert road amply supplied with water. 
Westward stretched over 200 miles of desert to the valley of the Orontes and the 





Fig. 5.—Tur Bitumen Basin at Hit 


Mediterranean kingdoms. On this western desert road nine or ten days’ journey 
distant (140 miles) lay the oasis of. Tadmur, more familiar to us as Palmyra, which 
supported a caravan road between the Mediterranean kingdoms and the middle 
Euphrates region. On the east was the Mesopotamian Desert with a caravan route 
leading to Nineveh and the upper Tigris region. Khana-Mari lay thus like an island 
haven on the desert line of communication between Persia, Babylonia, and Assyria 
on the east, and Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Mediterranean world on the west. It is 
evident that in such a situation a sufficient population, maintaining themselves on an 
agricultural basis, would find sustenance here to develop a kingdom powerful enough 
to seek more than merely agricultural prosperity and to control the traffic up and down 
the river as well as the caravans of merchandise passing east and west through the 
deserts on each side. 

Today little of this ancient prosperity survives, as we shall see. The irrigation 
canal is clogged and has fallen into disuse. It contains water for a time in some places 





THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 27 


after the season of flood. In the north, around Deir, skin buckets operated by animals 
raise the water to irrigate the fields. In the south, beyond the limits of Khana-Mari, 
and especially above ‘Anah,! huge water wheels driven by the current of the river serve 
the same purpose much more efficiently. In Khana-Mari itself, however, cultivation 
is at present limited to the region immediately around the towns, and of these 
there are very few. There are some mounds marking the ruins of ancient cities, 
though they are far from being as numerous as in the region around Aleppo or on the 
Babylonian plain. Even our hurried journey through the country made it evident that 
no great and powerful nation native to this region and rooted in its soil ever gave 





Fig. 6.—A Brirumen WELL at Hit 


Hot water bubbles up through the liquid bitumen 


impressive expression to its power in imposing buildings and massive strongholds. 
Such structures now surviving in Khana-Mari were the work of great empires intruding 
from without. Such is the stronghold of Circesium which the Roman Empire erected 
at the northern end of the plain, fixing the imperial frontier securely in a region of 
copious water, plentiful provender for a garrison, and strong natural defenses, although 
surrounded by vast reaches of desert fatal to an army once involved in them. It was 
an outpost like an island or a bridge pier which the Romans held secure but failed to 
advance permanently to the other shore. In the same way Alexander’s successors 
made use of the place and continued to hold it. Just as under Greeks and Romans 


1The water wheels begin a few miles below El-Kaim and extend to Hit. 


28 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


it was a safe frontier outpost of the West against the East, so it had earlier been a 
similar stronghold of the East against the West, and a number of important battles 
in the age-long struggle of Kast and West were fought on the plain of Khana-Mari. 
Until recently, however, we have not been able to trace the history of the region 
farther back than the Seleucid occupation, nor even as far as this without serious gaps. 

Concerning the period preceding Alexander’s successors little was known of 
Khana-Mari until the last years of the past century, when cuneiform documents 
containing references to the lands of Hana (Khana) and Mari began to appear. 
Some references to Mari had been observed in documents previously known,! but its 
situation had at first been wholly problematical. 

At length indications were noted in the cuneiform documents that Mari was 
situated along the middle Euphrates near the steppe called Suhz (Sukhi).2 The first 





Fig. 7.—LooxktneG up THE EUPHRATES AT HApiTHaH 


The narrow strip of vegetation stops in the immediate background where the cliffs of the plateau 
may be seen descending to the river on both shores, 


document mentioning the land of Khana was published in 1897.3 It was a cuneiform 
tablet containing a deed of gift of a house situated “‘near the palace” in the city of 
Tirka, and it bore the seal of ISar-lim, king of Khana. For ten years this remained — 
the sole document from Khana known tous. Then in 1907 Johns published a marriage 
contract! from Khana, which showed that this country was situated in Mesopotamia 
in the region of the river Khabtr. At about the same time there appeared a tablet 
which came from a temple erected in Tirka by Shamshi-Adad, an Assyrian patesi 

1 Thureau-Dangin, Die sumerischen and akkadischen Kénigsinschriften, 1907, pp. 22-23, 170-71. 


Compare also King, History of Sumer and Akkad, plate opp. p. 102, and p. 98; Ed. Meyer, Geschichte 
des Altertums, I, 2% (1913), §386. 


2 Weissbach, Babylonische Miszellen, pp. 9 ff.; and Herzfeld, Revue d’Assyriologie, XI (1914), 137, 

3 Thureau-Dangin, Revue d’ Assyriologie, IV, 3. livr. (1897), pl. XXXII, no. 85; and Orientalistische 
Litteratur-Zeitung, XI (1908), col. 93 (note 1). 

4C. H. W. Johns, Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, X XIX (May, 1907), 180; 
cf. Ungnad, Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie, XXII (1909), 9. 














THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 29 


who ruled about 1900 8.c.!. The evidence for its provenience indicated that the tablet 
was found at Tell <Ashara in the plain below the defile of Circesium. Shortly after 
this a tablet purchased near Deir el-Far in the same plain near the great ruin of RAahaba 
proved to be a gift by “King Ammi-Bail” of land situated partially in the city of 
Tirka.2 In 1909 another of these documents from Khana was published by Thureau- 
Dangin, who had first observed and identified the references to it. The new tablet® 
recorded a contract concerning a sale of land in the territory of Tirka under a king 
called Kashtiliashu. Summarizing the evidence of content, handwriting, ete., 
Thureau-Dangin concludes that all these documents from Khana came from the same 
body of archives.* 

Finally this rapidly appearing series of documents regarding the kingdoms of 
Khana and Mari culminated just before the Great War in a report by Herzfeld of his 


ee 





Fig. 8.—Scanty FIeLtps ALONG THE EuPHRATES Two MILES ABOVE HapiTHaH 


The water wheel of Fig. 9 in the background 


discovery that the tiny Arab village called <Ashara in the plain of Khana-Mari, 
15 kilometers south of Meyadin, was built on a mound of ancient ruins dating far 
back of Graeco-Roman antiquity. He acquired here from the natives ancient Baby- 
lonian sculptures of very early date reaching far back in the third millennium B.c. 
The side of the mound out of which these pieces undoubtedly came has been cut away 
by the action of the Euphrates current, and in this vertical section exposed by the 
river Herzfeld himself dug out of the ancient rubbish a tablet dating from the First 
Dynasty of Babylon and recording the fact that a king of Mari named Zim{ri] had 

1P, Condamin, Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie, XXI (1908), 247; and important discussion by 
Thureau-Dangin, Orientalistische Litteratur-Zeitung, XI (1908), col. 193. 


2 Ungnad, ‘‘Urkunden aus Dilbat,” Beitrdge zur Assyriologie, VI (1909), No. 5, 26 ff.; Vorder- 
asiatische Schriftdenkmdler ....zu Berlin, VII, no. 82; and Herzfeld, op. cit., p. 138. 


8 Thureau-Dangin, Journal Asiatique, 10° Série, XIV (1909), 149-55. 
4 Thureau-Dangin, zbid., p. 155. 


30 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


erected a building in Tirka.! It was then evident that the ruins of Tirka were. buried 
under the mound of Tell ‘Ash4ra, and that the little Arab village on the mound was 
built on the ruins of the capital of Khana, for such Tirka must have been. That the 
king of Mari should have been erecting a building in the capital of Khana would 
suggest that he had conquered Khana and was ruling it. The position of Tirka in 
the midst of the plain around modern Meyadin shows clearly that the kingdom of 
Khana included at least that plain stretching toward Deir ez-Zér, however much more 
it may have comprised. 

Shortly after this Clay? discussed the occurrence of the name of Mari in various 
forms and suggested that the middle Euphrates town of Merra or Merrha, included 





Fig. 9.—IRRIGATION WATER WHEEL IN THE HUPHRATES AT HapiTHAH 


Compare Fig. 8. The current turns the wheel and raises the submerged and filled buckets or 
jars to be emptied into the aqueduct leading to the field on the left. These wheels begin a few miles 
below El-Kaim (Fig. 12) and extend to Hit. 


by Isidor of Charax in his lists, should be identified with Mari of the cuneiform docu- 
ments. This equation of Mari with Merrha is not at all unlikely; though Merrha 
has commonly been placed at Irzi, on the left bank of the Euphrates surmounting 
the salience of the plateau which terminates the plain of Khana-Mari on the south. 
But it is probable that the town of Mari will be found nearer to Dura, for Isidor 
makes Dura his nineteenth station and Merrha his twentieth. The interval which 
he gives between Dura and Merrha is 5 schoinoi. I have never marched it myself, 
but, measured with no allowance for tortuous terrain, the interval on the British 

1 Herzfeld, op. cit., pp. 131-39. | 

2 Clay, Yale Oriental Series. Babylonian Texts, Vol. I, p. 4. .New Haven, 1915. 














THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 31 


War Office map from Salihtyah to Irzi is over 35 miles, a distance considerably ex- 
ceeding 5 schoinoi as used by Isidor. Merrha is therefore much more likely to have 
lain somewhere within the Khana-Mari plain—a situation which would make its 
identification with Mari much more probable. Thus our identification of Sélihtyah 
as ancient Dura enhances the value of the identification of Isidor’s Merrha with Mari, 
for it places Mari in accordance with Isidor’s arrangement of his stations 5 schoinoi 
from a known point, and connects it with the plain where the discovery of Tirka has 
shown it must belong. 





Fig. 10.—THEe VALLEY OF THE EUPHRATES AT CANAH 


We look downstream from the north end of the <Anah district. Although several miles long, the 
cultivated strip at <Anah is so narrow that the whole of it would not exceed the area of a good-sized 
farm in the Mississippi Valley. 


We are now in a position to discern something of the course of history on the 
Middle Euphrates from a very early date. The little kingdom of Mari was already 
subject to the Babylonians as far back as the supremacy of Lagash around 3000 B.c., 
when Eannatum, the king of Lagash, was overlord of Mari and there was intimate 
intercourse between the kings of Mari and those of Babylonia. A king of ‘‘Ma’er 
or Mari” in this same early epoch seems to have offered to Shamash of Babylonia an 
archaic seated statue now in the British Museum.! In these early days when ephemeral 
political leadership was shifting frequently from one Babylonian city to another, 
even the little kingdom of Mari might aspire to such supremacy. ‘The early dynastic 


1 Herzfeld, op. cit., p. 137; King, op. cit., pp. 97-98, and plate opp. p. 102, right-hand figure; 
Thureau-Dangin, Die suwmerischen und akkadischen Kénigsinschriften, 1907, 170-71. 


32 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


lists preserved a tradition from an age so early as to be half mythic,! that Mari gained 
the leadership of Babylonia and maintained it for at least a generation through the 
reigns of several kings.2, We can only conclude that the presumably Semitic chieftain 
of Mari was a military leader of ability who was able to march his desert troops down 
the Euphrates and conquer the alluvial plain below, just as the ancestors of Ham- 
murabi, many centuries later, were able to do. The overthrow of Mari after its 
leadership had weakened seems to have made an impression, at the time of its 
occurrence, as an event of sufficient importance to furnish the current and official form 
of the year name used in dating: ‘year when Ma’er (Mari) was destroyed.’ 





Fig. 11.—Istanp CULTIVATION IN THE HUPHRATES AT CANAH 


The walls of the desert plateau are seen descending to the river on the other (left) bank, as in 
Fig. 10. 


With the rise of the powerful Sargon I, his dominion extended up the Euphrates 
for a time into Syria, even to the silver-bearing mountains of Cilicia, and his records 
affirm that he held ‘‘the upperland, Mari, Yarmuti and Ibla.’* Mari seems to be 


1 Delaporte, La Mesopotamie, p. 65, places the dynasty of Mari in “‘Chronologie mythique”’ (in 
L’ Evolution de V Humanité, Vol. VIII, Paris, 1923). 

2L. Legrain, Historical Fragments, pp. 18-24 (in ‘University of Pennsylvania, The University 
Museum, Publications of the Babylonian Section,” Vol. XIII); again, Museum Journal (December, 
1920). See also Gadd, The Early Dynasties of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 8-12. 

3 Legrain, ibid., pp. 62-63. 

4Poebel, Historical Texts, pp. 177-78 (in “University of Pennsylvania, The University 
Museum, Publications of the Babylonian Section,” Vol. IV, No. 1). My colleague Professor Lucken- 
bill calls my attention to the fact that Sargon’s possession of Mari is confirmed by an Assyrian copy 
of Sargon I’s records made under Sargon II of Assyria. See Schroeder, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur 
verschiedenen Inhalts, Text No. 92. It places Mari on the Euphrates. See also Poebel, op. cit., 
pp. 222 ff. 








THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 33 


used here vaguely both for the middle Euphrates region and for territory which it 
controlled for an uncertain distance up the Euphrates. It is evident that Mari has 
been absorbed in the northwestern expansion of Babylonia as it pushed up the 
Euphrates into Syria. 

Very much later, under the Ur Dynasty, there was a governor of Mari named 
Izi-Dagan, as we learn from his seal. Not long afterward, about the middle of the 
twenty-fourth century B.c., we find a man of Mari, probably a hardy military 
adventurer, who went down the river to the Babylonian plain and made a success- 
ful career at Isin, where he was strong enough to establish a dynasty. His name 
was Ishbi-Irra and he was the first king of the well-known Dynasty of Isin.! 





Fig. 12.—TaMARISK THICKETS ALONG THE EUPHRATES AT EL-Kamm 


Such tracts furnish only food for camels, seen feeding in this view 


During the career of Isin arose the First Dynasty of Babylon, the famous line of 
Hammurabi, a family which also pushed down the Euphrates from the west and 
established its fortunes in the Babylonian plain. It is evident that these upriver 
Semites like Ishbi-Irra and the ancestors of Hammurabi were aggressive and 
energetic men of action. Their drift down the Euphrates and their easily won 
supremacy in the alluvial lowland were not unlike the barbarian intrusions into the 
later Roman Empire, whose advent brought in new blood and efficient leadership. 
There are indications that the same type of Semitic chieftains also pushed into Egypt 
more than once. What they brought with them was chiefly aggressive leadership, 
for there is no evidence that the regions from which they came possessed anything 
but the crudest stages of incipient civilization in the period preceding 2000 B.c., the 
period with which we are dealing. Like the barbarous Persian shepherds of Cyrus’ 


1 Poebel, op. cit., p. 223, 


34 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


time, they had to learn civilization in the more advanced communities whose territories 
they invaded. But the unlettered Persians, who could not write and did not even 
possess a system of writing when they first advanced against the civilized world of the 
Ancient Orient, produced Cyrus and Darius, two of the greatest organizers that ever 
lived. In the same way these upriver Semites of Mari and the region above it brought 
forth the founders of dynasties and such able rulers as Hammurabi.! 5 
Poebel has suggested that Mari was the political center of the middle Euphrates 
region in the days when Hammurabi himself attacked it? and destroyed its wall. 
We should expect a sagacious ruler like Hammurabi to push up the Euphrates and 
prevent further invasions of Babylonia from this quarter, such as his fathers had long 
been carrying on. When he edited his code he seems still to have held the Khana-Mari 
region. After Hammurabi’s successors failed to hold his dominions together and lower 
Babylonia fell away, it is probable that Mari likewise escaped from the control of the 
Babylonian dynasty for a time, and thereupon we lose sight of it for long centuries. 
In the foregoing rapid survey we see that the ancient documents afford us glimpses 
of the situation on the middle Euphrates for some nine centuries after 3000 B.c. After 
the beginning of the twenty-first century B.c., it is nearly a thousand years before 
we gain another glimpse of the plain of Khana-Mari. In the long interval the civiliza- 
tion of Babylonia had declined as a result of foreign invasion, and her political fortunes 
had likewise suffered eclipse. ‘The expansion of Assyria had meantime carried her 
armies westward to the Euphrates, where Khana-Mari did not escape the growing 
power of the mighty kingdom on the Tigris. From the new documents discovered 
in the excavation of the old Assyrian capital at Assur, whence the kingdom took its 
name, we learn that in the thirteenth century B.c. King Tukulti-Inurta I traversed 
and captured ‘‘Mari, Khana, Rapiku, and the mountains of Akhlami. ... . "8 The 
1Jt is a curious perversion and misunderstanding of existent evidence which would find in the 
region whence these able leaders came, the original source of civilization—a region which excavation 
has shown was far inferior in civilization to both Babylonia and Egypt in the period preceding 2000 
B.c., and indeed for long after this date. Moreover, alarge part of the region is arid desert, furnishing 
no economic basis for the development of civilization. The theories of an “‘Amorite Empire” have 
been formulated in complete misunderstanding of the elementary facts in the economic geography 
of the country. For example, we are told that “‘the northern part of this territory, known as Syria and 
Mesopotamia, is fertile” (A. T. Clay, The Empire of the Amorites, p.50. Yale University Press, 1919). 
The actual facts are that, with the exception of the lower part of the valleys of the Baltkh and the 
KhAébir, Mesopotamia is a desert, or waterless steppe, and much of Syria likewise; for the desert 
extends from Mesopotamia westward beyond the Euphrates into Syria including the hills overlooking 


Homs in the Orontes Valley; while eastward it even invades the east side of the Tigris. Needless to 
say that civilizations do not arise nor empires develop in deserts. 

2 Poebel, op. cit., p. 223, year name of Hammurabi’s fourth year. 

3’ Schroeder, Keilschrifiterte aus Assur historischen Inhalts, 2tes Heft (‘‘ Veroffentlichungen der 
Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft,” 37, Leipzig, 1922), Text No. 60, ll. 69 ff. I am indebted to my 
colleague Professor Luckenbill for this reference. The list of the king’s foreign conquests following 
the foregoing regions includes thirty-four geographical names and among them appears the ‘land 
Duri,”’ which can hardly be our Dura. 





THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 35 





Fig. 13.—Tue Evpurates At TIBNI 


The view is eastward, showing the scanty vegetation of the arid steppe 








Fic. 14.—Tue EvpHrates VALLEY AT HALABLYAH 


For over 5 miles above this point there is no cultivation along the river. The succession of 
views here omits the Deir ez-Zér plain and its region, which will be found in Figs. 17-24. Photograph 
from Sarre-Herzfeld, Pl. LX XII. 








36 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


list seerms to be proceeding from east to west, that is, up the Euphrates, and thus places 
Mari below Khana, in accordance with the position of Isidor’s Merrha below Dura 
which we have discussed above. In so far as we know, this was the first appearance 
of the Assyrians in Khana-Mari, and Assyrian power was therefore first felt here in 
the thirteenth century B.c. 

Almost four centuries later we find the Assyrians again on the middle Euphrates 
led by another Tukulti-Inurta, the second of the name.! On his sixth campaign 
Tukulti-Inurta II? (890-885 B.c.) marched his army in a great circle southward down 
the river Tartar (parallel with the Tigris on the west) and then up the Euphrates and 





Fig. 15.—UNcuLTIvVABLE TAMARISK THICKETS ALONG THE HUPHRATES AT SABKHAH 
Part of the khan of Sabkhah in the foreground 


the Khabar. His annals call the region “Sirqu”’ and ‘ Rummunidi,” and it may be, 
as Scheil has suggested, that we are to recognize the oriental ancestor of the Roman 
Circesium in Sirqu. 

It is likely to have been during this Assyrian domination that the rulers of the 
Khana-Man plain noticed the natural strength of the bold promontory opposite the 
middle of the plain, where the western plateau thrusts forward to the river as we have 


1 This name was long read “ Tukulti-Ninib.”” The proper reading has been much discussed, for 
example by Clay (Yale Oriental Series. Babylonian Texts, Vol. I, pp. 97-99), but it is not yet 
entirely certain. 

2 The annals of this king turned up in the hands of antiquity dealers in Mosul at the very time 
when the foregoing documents concerning Khana-Mari were being recovered. This great tablet, 
93> 104 inches in size and bearing 147 lines of text, has been rendered available by the excellent 
publication of V. Scheil, Annales de Tukulti-Ninip IT roid’ Assyrie 889-884, Paris, 1909 (“‘ Bibliothéque 
de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes,” 178™° fasc.). 





THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 37 


already stated (p. 25). At any rate the Semitic rulers of the region placed a stronghold 
on the crest of this promontory, and called it simply the “burg” or “castle,”’ which is 
in Assyrian daru.!. We know nothing of the history of the place which thus gained 
the name of Dir or later Dura. Complete excavation over the whole top of the 
promontory might possibly reveal remains of the Assyrian stronghold and records 
of its history, but they are not yet available. Hence we cannot trace the fortunes 
of this remote little kingdom on the middle Euphrates during the Assyrian domination; 
and although it was traversed again by the campaigns of Assurnacirpal IIT (885-860 
B.c.), we learn next to nothing of Khana-Mari throughout the course of the Assyrian 





Fig. 16.—Tue Evpurates at Meskenau 


At this point the Baghdad-Aleppo road, branching off toward Aleppo, 54 miles distant, forsakes 
the river. 


Empire or of the Chaldean and Persian empires which succeeded in the control of 
the Euphrates world. 

With the fall of the Persian Empire we again catch a glimpse of Khana-Mari. 
The strategic advantages of making this plain and its river buttresses the frontier 
gateway of the Syrian desert, protecting their Syrian dominions on the east, was at 
once observed, as we might have expected, by Alexander’s successors. Fortunately 
for our investigations, the able Macedonian commander Nikanor was favorably 
impressed with the natural strength of Dura itself. Isidor of Charax calls Dura 
“a city of Nikanor, a foundation of the Macedonians.’? This colonization must 
have occurred while Nikanor was governor of Mesopotamia under Seleucus I, and 


1 There can be no doubt that the Greek name of the place, Aotpa, has descended from the Assyrian 
daru, “‘stronghold;” so also Cumont (Syria, IV [1923], 53). 


2 See the following footnote. 


38 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


previous to 312 B.c., when he revolted against his sovereign. Apparently it proved 
impossible to give the place an exclusively new name, for the old Assyrian designation, 
Dura, continued to be used and persisted to the end. Perhaps as the result of an 
unsuccessful attempt on Nikanor’s part to give his new foundation a name which would 
mark it as a Macedonian settlement in the Orient, we find that the place was “called 
Europos by the Greeks.”! The recovery of the records of this Macedonian colony 
on the Euphrates has very strikingly revealed a new example of the penetration of the 
Near Orient by Greek influences after the campaigns of Alexander the Great. For 
these colonists from the West maintained their essentially Greek culture for genera- 
tions, and the earliest monuments which Sarre and Cumont found in the place are 





Fic. 17.—Tsue EuPHRATES AND THE PLAIN OF DEIR £z-ZOR 


The cliffs on the horizon far back from the river are those on the left, or Mesopotamian, side of 
the Euphrates. The canal (p. 25) skirts these cliffs. 


purely Greek in character, including even the code of laws which the colonists used, 
and of which a fragment written on parchment was recovered by Cumont. 

The earliest houses in the town, which go back to these Macedonian colonists, 
and one of which had been uncovered by a British officer who showed it to us, were also 
partially excavated by M. Cumont.? They are laid out with streets at right angles, 
forming a city with square-block arrangement such as the architects of the Hellenistic 


1Tsid. Char., Mans. Parth., 4: Aotpa, Nuxdvopos dds, xricua Maxeddver, bard 5& “EA\QVOY Epwros 
xadetrat (C. Miller, Geographi Graeci Minores, I, 248). 

2 They were first noted by Sarre and Herzfeld in their Archdologische Reise im Euphrat- und 
Tigris-Gebiet, II, 391. 











THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 39 


period introduced in towns like Priene—a system commonly attributed to one of the 
architects of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Deinocrates, who employed it in 
his plan of Alexandria. 

Dura long continued to be a frontier stronghold of the Seleucid Empire and 
Polybius' tells how, almost a century after its foundation, our Europos was taken by 
Molon in his insurrection against Antiochus (221 B.c.), as the limit of the rebellious 
commander’s advance down the Euphrates. 

The situation of Dura-Europos in the heart of the northern desert, however, was 
too remote from the Mediterranean for it to remain permanently attached to the 
decaying Seleucid Empire, and after the rise of the Parthians (third century on) it 
was held by them. Cumont notes evidence that it was then culturally cut off from 
the west. While Asia Minor and Syria adopted the Julian calendar early in the 





Fig. 18.—TuHe PLAIN AND City or Drtr £z-Z6R 


The cultivation at present extends but a short distance from the town, whose minarets are 
visible on the horizon. 


Christian Era, Dura continued to employ the Graeco-Macedonian calendar with its 
inconvenient intercalary months, one of which is mentioned in the temple graffiti 
of Dura. For generations the place must have been completely under the domination 
of oriental influences, which would be felt the more in view of the fact that Arab 
and Aramaean settlers had long shared the town with the Macedonian colonists and 
mingled their life with that of the Western immigrants, as the Semitic names among 
the inscriptions clearly demonstrate. 

It was probably at this period of the Parthian occupation that the city received 
at least some of its massive fortifications. At any rate it is quite evident that the 
extreme northwest angles of the city wall, where the townsmen later built their temple 
of Zeus-Baal (see pp. 68-74), were erected before the latter part of the first century of 

1Polybius v. 48. 16, especially as explained by Eduard Meyer in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., 


s. v. “Europos,” No. 5, against the correction of Droysen and of Benzinger. See Cumont, Les 
Travaux Archéologiques, p. 71. 


40 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


the Christian Era, that is, before this region had ever seen a Roman soldier. Sarre 
and Herzfeld, who wrote under the impression that the city was never occupied by 
the Romans for any length of time, evidently regarded the fortifications as pre-Roman. 
If so, it would seem more probable that the Parthians erected them than that they 
should have been the work of the Seleucids. Stretching at its greatest length some 
1,400 meters (over four-fifths of a mile) along the heights overlooking the Euphrates, 
and expanding over 1,000 meters (three-fifths of a mile) at its greatest breadth, the 
immense inclosure of the city walls is still a very impressive sight. Commanding the 
whole, a massive castle 50 by 390 meters (about 165 by 1,270 feet) was thrown along 
the brow of the cliff above the Euphrates. If done by Parthian builders, this building 
is a great achievement of Parthian architecture. If indeed we should attribute the 
fortress to them, it should be noted that we have in the vast stronghold of Dura- 
Salihtyah the most imposing, if not the greatest, fortress left us by the Parthians. 





Fic. 19.— SHEEP FEEDING ON THE UNCULTIVATED TRACTS OF THE DEIR £Z-ZOR PLAIN 


In such impressive buildings they were following traditions inherited from their 
predecessors, the Assyrians and Babylonians, but especially the former. The impres- 
sions made upon the Romans when they first beheld these gigantic buildings of Western 
Asia are evident in such Roman monuments as the triumphal arch, an architectural 
form unquestionably derived from the Parthian palace front, which was itself in turn 
the offspring of the Assyrian palace fagade.? 

But the strong city of Dura, guarding the western approaches of the Parthian 
Empire, was long immune from western aggression. The eastward advance of Rome 
after 200 B.c. fell far short of the plain of Khana-Mari, and the Romans had no dealings 
with the Parthians until 92 B.c., when the latter made overtures to Sulla desiring the 
friendship of Rome. The conquest of Syria by Pompey in 64 B.c. did not even 
include Palmyra, which is 140 miles nearer the Mediterranean than Dura. Neverthe- 
less the absorption of the lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean by Rome 
re-established the ancient commercial connection between the Mediterranean lands 


1 See the author’s Ancient Times, p. 611, Fig. 248. 





THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHTYAH 41 


on the one hand and the Tigro-Euphrates world on the other. On the desert roads 
already discussed above, the two most important stations were Palmyra and Dura. 
The blood of the ancient Aramaean and Phoenician traders who had carried the 
Aramaean tongue throughout the vast territories of the Persian Empire from the 
frontiers of India to the Aegean shores of Asia Minor and had distributed throughout 
the ancient world the first alphabet—the one from which our own is descended—was 
the dominant strain in these two remote desert towns. They could not fail to take 
advantage of the great market which the Roman conquest had opened on the west. 
While Palmyra is separated from the Euphrates by over 100 miles of difficult and 





Fic. 20.—A Woon CaRAVAN IN THE STREETS OF DEIR £z-ZOR 


Deir is the modern metropolis of the middle Euphrates, and the road from Aleppo to Mosul 
crosses the Euphrates here. 


dangerous desert, this situation proved her salvation from the Parthians on the east. 
At the same time, when approached across the desert from the west, the oasis of 
Palmyra is almost equally difficult of access and hence the clever Palmyrenians long 
succeeded in escaping the clutches of the Roman Colossus. Situated thus in a position 
of enormous commercial importance on the eastern fringes of the Roman Empire, 
Palmyra flourished prodigiously. Her position in the east was analogous to that which 
had been occupied in the western Mediterranean by Carthage. Both cities were of 
Semitic origin. In both the traditions and racial instincts growing out of ages of 
commercial domination and reaching back to the dawn of history impelled them to 
economic leadership. As the Phoenician merchant princes of Carthage long threatened 


42 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


the leadership of Rome in the western Mediterranean, so the commercial power of 
Palmyra was a serious obstacle to Roman expansion in the Orient. Antony failed 
in an attempt to raid the rich markets of Palmyra with his cavalry in 41 B.c.; and, 
long surviving its western prototype, this eastern Carthage of the desert pushed 
eastward to the Euphrates, absorbed Dura, and by the end of the first generation 
of the second century of our era was holding the Euphrates Valley far down toward 
the Babylonian plain on the route to the Persian Gulf at SAnah.! 

In this prosperous commercial kingdom of Palmyra, Dura occupied an important 
strategic point commanding the caravan route of the Euphrates crossing, which united 





Fic. 21.—Across THE Roors oF DEIR EZ-ZOR 


Palmyra with the East. As I have already stated, Dura is about 140 miles almost 
due east of Palmyra, and in a brief airplane flight which I made along the Euphrates 
above and westward from Albu Kamal, I could see that the country west of the 
Euphrates toward Palmyra was quite easily traversable. The engineer Gernik also 
reports the practicability of the route across the desert between Palmyra and Dura- 
Sdlihtyah.2 Dura thus enjoyed strategic advantages in traffic which gave it an impor- 
tant share in the commercial prosperity of the Palmyrene kingdom to which it was 
subject. Public buildings, the customary expression of such prosperity in the ancient 
world, were not wanting. The earliest important building of this kind at Dura was 


1Cumont, Syria, III (1922), 210 (note 1). 


2 Cernik, op. cit., p. 18. The later British military surveys also show a road from SAlihtyah to 
Palmyra. 














THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 43 


a sanctuary or place of assembly, presumably of stone masonry. Its stone seats for 
the aristocracy were found, when Cumont cleared away the rubbish, still bearing 
carved upon each seat the name of its regular occupant, like the seats in the theater 
of Dionysus at Athens. Each name was preceded by the date 373 of the Seleucid 
Era, which corresponds to A.D. 61. The names display a curious mixture of Greek 
and Semitic, naturally resulting from the commingling of races which had been going 
on at the place for nearly four centuries. The building itself had been put up thirty 
years before the introduction of the seats, that is, in A.p. 31, by one Ammonios, son of 
Apollophanes, son of Seleucus, as a pious contribution to the life of the town.! Two 





Fic. 22.—Tue Brings at Derr £z-ZéRr 


This bridge connects the town with an island in the Euphrates. A bridge connecting the island 
with the other (Mesopotamian) shore has long been planned but never built. 


other buildings, close by, erected for purposes of public assembly, also testify to the 
prosperity of the town at this time.” 

Not more than two generations after the erection of the first building just men- 
tioned, that is to say, not long before a.p. 100 and perhaps earlier, the flourishing 
town of Dura erected an oriental temple to the Palmyrenian gods, the great triad of 
Palmyra, Baalsamin (Zeus-Baal, or Zeus Megistos), Aglibol, and Yarhibol. In doing 
so they left the group of three buildings enumerated above and withdrew to an angle 
of the city wall at the extreme western salience of the fortifications. In a 


1See Cumont, Comptes rendus (January 12, 1923), and Les Travaux Archéologiques, pp. 59-60. 
2 See Cumont, ibid. 


44 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


quadrangular area where the city wall, returning upon itself, surrounded the proposed 
building spot on three sides (see Fig. 55, p. 93), they erected the new sanctuary on a 
ground plan which tradition had transmitted in Syria from old Babylonian temple 
buildings. Prominent in the pious enterprise was the family of one Konon, who may 
have been the most powerful citizen of the place. The family of Konon employed 
Ilasamsos, an oriental painter doubtless living at Dura, to adorn the walls with 
surprisingly ambitious paintings. That they should have had at their disposal an 
oriental painter of such ability as Ilasamsos is striking evidence of the high level of 
Palmyrenian civilization in the first century of our era. In the sanctuary and looking 
down upon the temple shrine containing the sacred images of the gods, this painter 
draughted upon the wall in splendid colors a group of eleven life-size figures, including 





Fig. 23.—A Corner or DEIR £2-Z6R AND THE GARDENS ON THE ISLAND 


at least three and perhaps four generations of the family of Konon engaged in worship 
(Plate VIII, and pp. 76-88). To most of the leading figures in the scene the artist has 
appended their names, from which we learn the identity of these forgotten worthies 
of the Euphrates world who died eighteen centuries ago. It is a curiously unex- 
pected fact that, in the first century of our era, a family of renown in such a 
remote provincial city should have had themselves thus depicted on the walls of the 
sanctuary, precisely as noble families fifteen centuries later were wont to do in the 
Christian churches of Europe, as so commonly at Florence. It is also a very suggestive 
fact that we should find among them, occupying a position of central importance in 
the scene, a princely lady gorgeously appareled and splendid in adornments of gold 
and precious stones (Plate XI). In her we must without doubt recognize just 
such a noble Syrian lady as arose a century later in neighboring Palmyra in 
the person of the familiar Zenobia; and it is of interest to note that in the name 


THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHTYAH 45 


of Bithnanaia borne by our noble lady of Dura, we have a name of the same 
formation as that of Zenobia (see pp. 86-87). In costume and appearance on state 
occasions the famous Zenobia of Palmyra will have been a counterpart of our 
Bithnanaia of Dura. 

Perhaps about a quarter of a century later, that is, in A.D. 114, Lysias, a man of 
the third generation of this noble family, erected along the north side of the temple 
court, and abutting on the fortress wall immediately behind, a dwelling presumably 
for the priests of the temple, as an act of piety toward the gods of the place. He 
recorded his pious deed in an inscription in the court which was recovered in the course 
of Cumont’s clearance. 





Fic. 24.—Aras Boys or DretIr £z-Z6R 


It is a question of whether such a development of the life and civilization of Dura 
could have taken place under Parthian domination. It isnot unlikely that the growing 
power of the flourishing town had already thrown off the Parthian overlordship before 
the first arrival of the Roman legions. When the people of Dura looked down upon 
the Roman eagles for the first time, as Trajan passed along the opposite (left) bank 
of the Euphrates in a.p. 115, it is therefore probable that the Parthian garrison had 
already long evacuated the place. But the fine strategic wisdom of Hadrian would not 
permit him to hold for Rome a region so dangerously exposed as were the new oriental 
conquests of Trajan. 


1Cumont, Comptes rendus (January 12, 1923). 


46 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Later on, however, when Lucius Verus won his victory over the Parthians in A.D. 
162, Dura! must have fallen again into Roman hands; but if a Roman garrison 
occupied the place at this time, there is now no surviving trace of their presence. 
Two generations later, however, in A.D. 229, a cohort of Palmyrenians numbered the 
XXth left a dedication in the temple'to Alexander Severus, at a time when Rome was 
endeavoring to check the rising power of New Persia under Ardashir. Of this probably 
brief Roman occupation but a single Latin inscription survives in the place, in so 
far as excavation has disclosed its records. It is probable, as Cumont has already 
noted, that these Roman forces were thrown into the fortress of Dura in the time of 
Septimius Severus to protect his advance eastward into Mesopotamia. We may 





Fic. 25.—Mryabtin AND THE PLAIN oF KHAana-MarI 


perhaps attribute to the Roman commanders of this period the thickening and strength- 
ening of the city walls still observable at some points (Plate V, 1). Quite evidently 
belonging to this period is a memorial of their sojourn left by these troops at Dura 
on the wall of Hall I in the Zeus temple (Plate XXI)—a wall-painting in which we 
have the easternmost representation of Roman troops now surviving. Their com- 
mander, the tribune Julius Terentius, has had himself represented sacrificing at the 
head of his followers to the divinities of Dura and Palmyra. The legionaries shown 
in this painting worshiping the Tyche of Palmyra will without doubt have been 
levied at the latter city, and are thus evincing their desire to enjoy the favor 
of the Fortuna of their own home city, together with whom they also reverence the 
Fortuna of Dura. 


1 The evidence that this battle took place near Dura-Europos rather than at Jerablis-Europos, 
much farther up the Euphrates, has been set forth by Cumont, Les Travaux Archéologiques, pp. 73 f. 








THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 47 


We cannot discern the fortunes of the frontier stronghold of Dura during the 
destructive wars which made the third century of our era a counterpart of the terrible 
third century B.c. Nevertheless, some of the catastrophes of that disastrous century 
took place not far from Dura. The young Emperor Gordian III was assassinated 
hardly more than a day’s march from the city in a.p. 244, and the massive monument 
which his troops raised to his memory was long a feature of the landscape in the Dura 
region on the left bank of the Euphrates, although it has not been identified with 
certainty in modern times. The Arab assassin Philip, who thus thought to usurp the 
throne of the Caesars by the murder of Gordian III, was a predecessor of other and 
similarly ambitious orientals in the Near East. At Palmyra the able prince Odenathus, 
taking advantage of the preoccupation of the Roman emperors with wars which hurried 





Fic. 26.—Tue Arip Puan or Kuana-MArRI AND THE PLATEAU HorRIZOoN 


The plain is cultivated at present only on the fringes of the towns and hamlets, leaving most of 
it an unproductive steppe. 


the legions from Syria to Gaul, succeeded with the help of his gifted queen Zenobia 
in making his desert city a formidable power. Dura must have shared in the prosperity 
of Palmyra and felt the growing power by which Odenathus was striving to make his 
kingdom an oriental empire like that of the Seleucids or the kings of Parthia. When 
Aurelian’s triumph in distracted Gaul enabled him to turn his attention to the East, 
the defeat which he inflicted on Zenobia (a.p. 273) was transformed into complete 
destruction by the emperor’s orders to massacre the entire population of Palmyra. 
The famous kingdom of Zenobia disappeared, and the destruction which overtook 
Palmyra has left surviving but very scanty wreckage of that important Syrian civiliza- 
tion of the Aramaeans of which it had been the expression. 

Half a generation after the fall of Zenobia and the destruction of Palmyra, Diocle- 
tian determined to place the frontier stronghold of the Roman Empire on the Euphrates 


48 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


at the north end of the plain of Khana-Mari, at the narrow defile above the mouth 
of the Khabar (p. 24). The fortress of Circesium which he erected here is some 
40-odd miles above Dura. Left thus over two days’ march outside the boundaries 
of the Empire, Dura was thrown back upon itself and its desert surroundings. 
Stripped of all protection from the desert barbarians, the people of Dura seem slowly 
to have forsaken the place. In striking contrast with Palmyra, therefore, Dura 
suffered no violent destruction. It lay much too far out in the desert for the legions 
of Aurelian to carry their devastations thither. Nor did the legionaries ever occupy 
it again. As Cumont’s excavations have disclosed, its buildings and monuments 
fell gradually into decay and betray no sign of any violent overthrow or destructive 





Fic. 27.—Tur EvpHRaATES AND THE PLAIN oF Kuana-MaArRI FROM THE PLATEAU AT SALIBtYAH 


conflagration. A Christian ascetic was dwelling as a hermit in the ruins of the city 
as early as the reign of Constantine (A.D. 324-337).1 A generation or more later, 
when Emperor Julian passed the place on his ill-fated expedition of a.p. 363, the place 
was already a desert. Although like other Roman commanders he marched down 
the other (left) bank of the river, he was able to observe the complete desolation of 
the place, where lions and gazelles had already taken possession of the dwellings of 
men.? 

In course of time the roof of the forsaken temple of Zeus-Baal fell in, and the 
rubbish from the fall rose sufficiently high to cover and to preserve the lower zone of 


1G. Hoffmann, “Ausziige aus syrischen Akten persischer Miartyrer,’” Abhandl. der deutschen 
Morgenl. Ges., VII, No. 3 (1880), p. 28. 

2 Ammianus Marc. xxiii. 5. 8: ‘‘Duram desertum oppidum’’; xxiv. 1. 5: ‘Prope civitatem 
venimus Duram desertam.’”’ Similarly Zosimus iii. 14: "H)ée .... évredOev els Aodpa, tyvos wey ds apa 
more WONLs HY Hepovoay, TOTE 5é Epnuov. 





THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 49 


paintings from destruction at the hands of fanatical Arabs. Over the whole place 
a mantle of sand carried in by the desert winds slowly collected until it lay over the 
town—in some places as deep as 2 meters. Along the southwest side facing the 





Fiq. 28.—GuIMpPseE OF THE BAZAARS IN BAGHDAD 


desert the great drifts of sand rose almost to the parapet of the fortress walls and 
today mask the height of the masonry and reduce it to ignoble proportions (Plate I, 2). 

With the decay of all centralized political power, the plain of Khana-Mari, lying 
as it then did outside the Roman Empire, rapidly declined. Its absorption by New 
Persia and its conquest by the Moslems in the seventh and eighth centuries of the 


50 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Christian Era left it without leadership, and its resources were not worth the attention 
of the Moslem conquerors. The desert encroached upon its fields, the irrigation canal 
from the Khabir was choked up, there was insufficient grain and other food, and the 
population steadily decreased. Thus the towns were forsaken as the fields shrank 
to a scanty fringe around each village, and the solitude of the prehistoric wilderness 
from which it had originally come settled upon the plain of Khana-Mari. Upon this 
desolate wilderness, once green with far-stretching fields, the forsaken walls of the great 
fortress of Dura looked mutely down for centuries. As the Arabs wandered in from the 
desert and strolled over it, they naturally associated a fortress so imposing with the 
heroic memories of Saladin (Sal4h ed-Din), as they commonly do, and like a number 
of other such places they called it Salihtyah, ‘‘place of Salah.”’ Thus its ancient 





Fig. 29.—Tue Brince or Boats OVER THE TIGRIS AND PALM GROVES AT BAGHDAD 


Assyrian name of Dura and its later Macedonian name of Europos were finally forgot- 
ten, and survived in modern times only in the few scanty historical references in ancient 
Greek and Roman writers which have been cited above. Nor, as we have seen, had 
modern historians any idea of the identity of the ancient stronghold. For many 
centuries since its first establishment by the Assyrians or possibly the Babylonians 
and for some six hundred years more after its foundation by the great Macedonian 
general, it had guarded the crossing of the Euphrates where the traffic of East and 
West passed over the historic river, and thereafter it was a lost city for sixteen centuries. 

Into its silent defenses General Cunningham, the commander of the British Army 
on the Euphrates in the Great War, after a sharp engagement with the Arabs, threw 
his farthest outpost early in 1920.1 These British representatives of the greatest of 

1 There was a small scouting detachment which was stationed a few miles farther up the river 


and for a time there was British occupation in Deir ez-Zér, but Sélihtyah marks the uppermost 
position of the British Army on the Euphrates in 1920. 





THE HISTORY OF DURA-SALIHIYAH 51 


modern empires probably little dreamed of the significance of this place in the history 
of the greatest of ancient empires. Nor could they or anyone else, when they entered 
the fortress of Sdalihtyah, have had any premonition of the unfolding vista of ancient 
human life and development which was to result from the British occupation of the 
venerable stronghold. All about them lay a rich treasury of human documents from 
remote ages. In the relatively dry climate which this region enjoys, the winter rains 
had not penetrated far into the mantle of protecting sands. Beneath this covering 
lay almost perfectly preserved the monuments of this ancient border land between 
East and West. Their recovery has revealed to us something of the history of Khana- 
Mari as we have sketched it above, and disclosed to us monuments of art which 
anticipated and which contributed essentially to the development of art in Europe. 

The story of the recovery of these monuments furnishes the final episodes in the 
history of Dura, accompanied unhappily by the melancholy fact of the destruction or 
serious damage of the great painting which forms the chief subject of this volume. 
The vandalism of Arab ignorance and fanaticism, to which this destruction is due, is 
now only held in check by temporary French occupation, while Cumont continues for 
a time the effort to save what may yet be rescued from a place so remote and difficult 
of access. In the long and often repeated alternation of eastern and western power 
in the plain of Khana-Mari, which has gone on now for some five thousand years, 
the occupation of Dura by the British and its present permanent tenure by France 
under her Syrian mandate are the renewed extension of western supremacy in the 
ancient Near East, so often asserted and so often lost. 


II 


THE DISCOVERY OF THE DURA-SALIHIYAH 
PAINTINGS 


The route down the Euphrates, as we have observed (p. 48), followed the east 
or left bank of the river throughout ancient history until the Arab occupation. 
Modern explorers desirous of following the ancient road have commonly passed 
along the east side of the river, and Dura-Salihtyah, lying on the west (right) bank 
has usually found but casual mention, as various travelers have recorded their impres- 
sions in viewing it across the stream. Thus Sachau went up the east bank and Miss 
Gertrude Bell went down the same bank in 1909. In 1872, however, the engineer 
Cernik visited the site and published a brief summary of his observations.! It was 
not until 1898 when F. Sarre visited Salihtyah that archaeological examination of the 
place was begun. He inspected it several times subsequently—for the last time in 
1911-12—but did not publish his results until 1920, in combination with E. Herzfeld 
in their monumental work on the ancient remains in the Tigro-Euphrates world.? 

On the return of the Mesopotamian expedition of the Oriental Institute of the 
University of Chicago from the upper Tigris and its arrival in Baghdad on April 23, 
1920, the Civil Commissioner, Colonel A. T. (now Sir Arnold) Wilson, and General 
(now Sir) Perey Hambro, the Quartermaster General, sent me information to the effect 
that they would be glad if we could undertake to ascend the Euphrates on an archaeo- 
logical mission on their behalf. Colonel Wilson explained to me the circumstances 
which prompted his request and handed me a small file of papers which he said would 
further inform me of the reasons for the desirability of our journey up the Euphrates. 

On opening the papers I found an unfinished drawing in colored crayon of four 
human figures standing in a row and beside them a series of letters indicating the places 
of four additional figures in the same row. Under the sketch was a written note 
reading: ‘‘Rough sketch of a wall decoration excavated at Salihiyeh” [Salihtyah]. 
The drawing and the note were made by General Cunningham, who was in command 
on the upper Euphrates. My curiosity was naturally at once aroused and, looking 
farther through the papers, I discovered a dispatch addressed to Colonel Leachman 


1 Cernik, op. cit., p. 17. 

2 Friedrich Sarre and Ernst Herzfeld, Archdologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet (4 vol.), 
Vol. II, pp. 386-95, Abb. 371-77, and Vol. III, Plates LXXXI-LXXXIII, together with a plan 
of the fortress by Schulz. I regret that when my article in Syria, first publishing the Salihtyah 
paintings, was written I was not yet acquainted with this valuable work, as it had not reached our 
library. 

52 





DISCOVERY OF THE DURA-SALIHIYAH PAINTINGS 53 


and signed by Captain M. C. Murphy. It was dated March 31, 1920, at ‘ Albukemal”’ 
and read as follows: 


While at Salihiyah I discovered on 30th inst. some ancient wall paintings in a wonderful 
state of preservation. The paintings are in the west corner of the fort and consist of life-size 
figures of three men, one woman, and three other figures partly obliterated. The colours 
are mainly reds, yellows and black. There is also some writing which I have tried to reproduce 
below. 

I should be glad if you would forward this to the proper quarter. 


(signed) Murpny, Carr. 
Re ASV. 


This dispatch was covered by a note from Lieutenant Colonel Leachman to the 
Civil Commissioner which I read with unusual interest: 

As a result of our occupation of the old fort at Salahiyeh and the digging of trenches, a 
certain amount of finds have been made. The paintings to which the attached refers are 
most interesting & should, I think, be seen by an expert. If your American archaeologist 
is still about, it would well repay him to come & see this. The films enclosed are of the 
pictures. Could you please have them developed. If anyone comes up, it should be soon 


for obvious reasons. . 
(signed) G. LEACHMAN 


The papers had evidently been sent to Miss Gertrude Bell, the intrepid explorer 
and well-known archaeologist, now holding an important post in the British administra- 
tion in Mesopotamia. Miss Bell had promptly responded as follows: 

Look at the enclosed—it seems to me to be most curious & interesting. A. T. [Wilson] 


says if Prof. Breasted will go & look at it he’ll provide him with transport & would be very 
grateful for his advice. We both beg him to fit it into his programme if he possibly can. 


The whole correspondence was covered by a letter from the Civil Commissioner 
to General Sir Perey Hambro requesting me to call and stating that the Civil Commis- 
sioner would ‘‘be very glad if he [Breasted] could be sent, presuming that G. H. Q. 
agree to his entering what is very much of a war area.” 

As the British authorities had thus far thought it unsafe to allow our expedition 
to go up the Euphrates more than 100 miles at most, for reasons disclosed in the 
foregoing correspondence, I seized the opportunity with the greatest pleasure; but 
asked for a fortnight to be spent among the monuments on the Persian border first. 
I had noticed the statement in Colonel Leachman’s letter that “If anyone comes up 
it should be soon for obvious reasons.”’ In strict confidence the Civil Commissioner 
then informed me that there would be no time for us to make the trip to Persia because 
a withdrawal known only to the High Command was about to be undertaken—an 
operation which would shift the British frontier on the Euphrates almost 100 
miles farther down the river. This withdrawal was occasioned by difficulties in a 
line of transport communications excessively long. If we went to Persia first, therefore, 


54 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


the paintings would by that time le far out in Arab territory beyond the British 
lines, where they would be absolutely inaccessible without the protection of the 
troops, who could not be dispatched thither again. Furthermore the paintings 
would be exposed to the fanaticism of the bigoted Arabs, who would undoubtedly 
destroy them, as indeed in spite of precautions they have done since our departure 
from the place. It was evident that we should leave for the upper Euphrates at 
once. 

On April 28 in seven automobiles kindly furnished us by the British Army and 
Civil Government we left Baghdad for the upper Euphrates.! The accidents and 





Fic. 30.—BritisH GUNBOAT ON THE LOWER EUPHRATES AT FALLUJAH 


This is the usual point for crossing to the south (or west) side of the Euphrates on the Baghdad 
Aleppo route (see Map 1). When we reached it, the bridge of boats (like that at Baghdad) had 
been carried away; we were obliged to ascend to the bridge at Ramdédi, where we were overtaken by 
darkness among the hostile tribes who shortly afterward murdered the intrepid Colonel Leachman. 


delays of desert travel by automobile were such that the nearly 300-mile trip from 
Baghdad to the British frontier on the middle Euphrates occupied an entire week. 
This was particularly unfortunate, for it deprived us of the time which we had hoped 
to devote to the study of Salihtyah and its paintings. Twenty-seven miles from 
Salihtyah, that is, below it, we found the British headquarters at Albu Kam4l, where 
we were very kindly received by General Cunningham and his officers. Lieutenant 


1 This journey has been briefly described in Oriental Institute Communications No. 1, pp. 25-32. 








DISCOVERY OF THE DURA-SALIHTYAH PAINTINGS 55 


Colonel Leachman, of whose tragic death at the hands of the Arabs on his way down 
the Euphrates a short time after our arrival we had no premonition, even cleared 
out his office to make room for our five field beds. To all these gentlemen at Albu 
Kamal, whose many kindnesses we remember with gratitude, it is a pleasure to 
express our appreciation here. To Lieutenant Colonel Leachman it was chiefly due 
that we were able to continue our journey beyond Salihtyah and up the Euphrates 
to Aleppo and the Mediterranean. We were thus, I believe, the first western expedi- 
tion to cross the Arab state from Baghdad to the Mediterranean after it was proclaimed. 
It is not necessary to repeat the journal of this, for us, memorable journey, but it 
will contribute to a correct understanding of the physical background of the civilization 





Fig. 31.—Tue SEVEN Cars oF OuR CARAVAN BETWEEN FALLtJAH AND RAMADI ON THE LOWER 
EUPHRATES 


with which we are dealing to include a rapid panorama of the route from Baghdad 
to the Mediterranean, which the reader will find in the accompanying photographs 
(Figs. 28-50). 

As soon as possible after we reached Albu Kamal General Cunningham kindly 
drove with me the 27 miles from the Albu Kamal headquarters to Salihtyah for a 
preliminary examination of the paintings on the afternoon of May 3. On the way 
he showed me the battlefield on which the British had but a short time before inflicted 
a severe defeat on the Arabs, who were nevertheless still maintaining a hostile attitude. 
Sniping and desultory fighting, such as had preceded the battle, were still going on. 
Indeed after we left ‘Anah on our way up, the hostile tribes had been firing across the 
river at various points, and we realized that Sir Perey Hambro was quite right in 


56 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


calling the region ‘very much of a war area.’’ Driving in at the eastern or south- 
eastern angle of the great fortress of Salihtyah, we found British East Indian troops 
camping within, alongside the vast northern castle, under the command of Major 
Wright-Warren. I was surprised at the extent and massiveness of the enormous 
stronghold as we drove along its entire length parallel with the Euphrates and drew 
up near the western angles of the wall. Descending from the car, General Cunningham 
led the way over the rubbish piles commonly found in such ruins and around a jutting 
corner of massive masonry. Suddenly there rose before us (Fig. 53, p. 89) a high wall 
covered with an imposing painting in many colors depicting a life-size group of eleven 





Fig. 32.— BEGINNING OF THE PLATEAU ABOVE RAMADI AND BELOW HIT 


In this region the Baghdad-Aleppo road passes out of the alluvial plain of Babylonia and ap- 
proaches the narrow valley of the Euphrates eroded in the desert plateau. The cliffs of the plateau 
are seen in the background; in the foreground, trenches from the Great War. 


persons engaged in worship. My surprise at the extent of the vast fortress now gave 
way to amazement, as I gazed at these wonderful figures looking gravely down upon 
us, and as suddenly disclosed as if they had been conjured up by magic from the silent 
wastes of the desert which stretched out far below us. It was a startling revelation 
of the fact that in this deserted stronghold we were standing in a home of ancient 
Syrian civilization completely lost to the western world for sixteen centuries. A 
hundred and forty miles nearer the Mediterranean lay the desolate ruins of Palmyra, 
which Zenobia and her husband had made the beautiful capital of a powerful com- 
mercial empire. Here on the painted wall (Plate VIII) I saw, emerging from what 








DISCOVERY OF THE DURA-SALIHIYAH PAINTINGS 57 


might have been a palace doorway, a queenly lady arrayed in royal splendor, with 
gentlemen richly clad ranged on her either hand. Could this be Zenobia herself 
looking out upon us from the sanctuary wall in one of her dependent cities of sixteen 
centuries ago? Then my eye fell upon written words traced across the front of her 
skirt, and I read in Greek: “Bithnanaia, daughter of Konon.” It was not Zenobia, 
but she and her family were obviously heirs of Graeco-Syrian culture represented 
here by precious memorials, for recording and preserving which I realized we had 
but a few brief hours before the British evacuation would leave us without protection 
and force us to depart. 

We stood in a roofless structure of massive masonry, and it was evident that the 
wall paintings were in a transverse hall, which must have been the holy of holies of a 





Fig. 33.—Our Cars STALLED NEAR HADiTHAH IN A DESOLATE STRETCH BETWEEN HiT AND ‘ANAH 


sanctuary of some kind. The roof, undoubtedly an arch or vault, had been relatively 
high and above the great painting there were still clearly visible the lower portions of 
a second upper range or zone of paintings, of which almost all had been carried away 
by the falling of the plaster (see Plate VIII and p. 76).! It was evident that, besides 
studying the painting, we must also investigate the building. At General Cun- 
ningham’s request Major Wright-Warren agreed to furnish several squads of East 
Indian troops for the further excavation of the building, in the endeavor to clear 
the ground plan and also to lay bare other painted walls, which we could see in the 


1J7¢t must have been these traces of the upper row which were seen by Sarre. He remarks that 
he saw ‘“‘Reste eines Fresko-Gemildes in einem Gebaude nahe der W.—Ecke der Stadt, aus rustica- 
aihnlichen Gipsquadern errichtet’’ (Sarre-Herzfeld, op. cit., p. 392). 


58 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


hall preceding that of Bithnanaia. Having made these arrangements, we returned 
to spend the night at headquarters in Albu Kamal. 

Karly on the morning of May 4 we bade our kind hosts at headquarters farewell. 
We were not to see them again. Major Wright-Warren’s detachment was about 
to abandon its outpost at Salihtyah and return to headquarters at Albu Kamal, 
whence all were to withdraw down the river. They wished us success and good luck 
on our coming dash through the Arabs and up the Euphrates to the Mediterranean. 
It was still early when we drew up alongside the sanctuary of the paintings. The 
East Indians were already at work clearing the walls, and, in the first chamber (Hall I), 
we saw to our surprise a small scene in which a Roman tribune was depicted at the 





Fig. 34.—Our Britiso Convoy Harting at Nantyau JUST ABOVE CANAH 


In this region between <Anah and Salihtyah the hostile Arabs on the other (left) shore of the 
Euphrates were shooting across the river, and the protection of a military convoy was necessary. 


head of his troops, engaged in the worship of what looked like three statues of 
Roman emperors painted on the wall. There was the tribune’s name written beside 
him in Roman letters: “Julius Terentius, tribune,” and before him was the red battle 
flag of Roman troops, the only one of which the color is preserved, reminding us of 
Plutarch’s tale of the red flag hoisted over the tent of Varro before the battle of Cannae. 
Here were these tokens of Roman occupation full 35 miles outside of the well-known 
Roman frontier at Circesium by the mouth of the Khabir, which we were not expecting 
to see until we had put a two days’ march behind us. We had before us the eastern- 
most Romans ever found on the Euphrates, or anywhere else for that matter. Mean- 
time the ground plan, as the Indian troops continued to work, was beginning to emerge. 








DISCOVERY OF THE DURA-SALIHIYAH PAINTINGS 59 


In spite of two columns discernible in front of the two painted halls, it was now evident 
that in plan the building was clearly identical with that of the old Babylonian temples 
of much earlier age. 

With this archaic architecture following traditions which reached back to remote 
ages of Babylonian culture, and its rich mural decorations revealing both Graeco-Syrian 
and Roman civilization, the building was a historical document of the first rank; 
while the enormous stronghold in which it was imbedded equally required to be 
recorded and made available. Here was a task which might occupy a large expedition 
for months or years; and we had, before the British evacuation, but a single day in which 
to record and rescue this great body of documents. A moment’s reflection made it 
evident that we must devote ourselves to the great painting on the wall of Bithnanaia 





Fig. 35.—CaMELS OF THE British MILITARY TRANSPORT BELOW ALBU KAMAL 


in preference to everything else. One of the faces in this remarkable painting (Plate 
XIX)—and General Cunningham had informed me it was the finest face in the entire 
group—had already been barbarously scratched out, presumably by some prowling 
Arab who had succeeded in gaining entrance to the place. This disfigured face 
which had survived for eighteen centuries, to suffer destruction after it seemed to be 
safely in our hands, was a distressing demonstration of what would happen after we 
left, and admonished us to save the rest if possible. I therefore asked Dr. Luckenbill 
to take our largest camera, which was only 5X7 inches, and figure by figure to 
make photographs of the great painting, on as large a scale as possible, while I made 
detailed archaeological notes on the entire composition, including full data as to the 
colors and their distribution. Although I had never used the method before, it 
seemed probable that my field notes would make it possible, after our return to civiliza- 
tion, to insert the approximate colors of the original in enlarged prints of the field 
negatives. This at least was the only method available in the lamentably brief 


60 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


time at our disposition. The other gentlemen were asked to make a sketch plan and 
to insert in it all the dimensions which they found it possible to measure, as fast as the 
Indian troops laid bare the ground plan. 

The sun was low in the west when Dr. Luckenbill and I had finished our work on 
the wall of Bithnanaia and the other fragmentary paintings in Hall Il. We then 
turned our attention to Hall I, and especially to the painting of the Roman tribune. 
The excavation of the hall was confined to a trench skirting the painted walls, and the 
deep rubbish which filled the room prevented placing the camera properly. Further- 
more, the great painting had exhausted all our 5X7 inch plates but one. We dug 
a recess for the camera as best we could in order to get it low enough and far 
enough from the wall, but were unable to secure a remove from the wall sufficiently 





Fig. 36.—BritisH HEADQUARTERS AT ALBU KAMAL 


far to insure the inclusion of the whole painting: one of the three emperors (as we 
thought them) and one of the two goddesses fell outside the range of the instrument. 
We had been racing with the declining day and the fading light. It was not possible 
to dig out more of the rubbish and secure a better position. The exposure must be 
made at once or there would be no light with which to make it. With the sun on the 
western rim of the desert the slide was drawn and the last plate we had took a faint 
twilight impression of the easternmost Romans ever found depicted on a wall. 

There was nothing more to be done in securing a fuller record of the paintings, 
except to edit one’s notes while one’s memory was fresh and vivid. The younger 
members of the party made a tour of the city walls, doing as much pacing as possible 
in order to gain some impressions of the size and extent of the stronghold.! 


1J7t was impossible in this hasty inspection to secure data for an accurate plan of the fortress, 
and the plan which I first published in Syria needs serious correction. See p. 63. 





DISCOVERY OF THE DURA-SALIHIYAH PAINTINGS 61 


Realizing fully the hasty character of our observations and the unparalleled 
opportunity presented by the place, we were a weary and rather discouraged party 
as we crept into our field beds that night. Nevertheless we stowed away the plates 
and the notebooks with the consciousness that more could hardly be expected from 
a single day’s work. In the gloom preceding the dawn we devoured a hurried and 
chilly breakfast, and, bidding Major Wright-Warren farewell, we climbed into our 
Turkish arabanahs, joined presently by several mounted Arab rifles, an escort of 
friendly Arabs which we owed to the thoughtfulness of Lieutenant Colonel Leachman. 
The arabanah, drawn by horses, is not a vehicle suited for speed, and it seemed tanta- 
lizingly slow after the automobiles, which we had of course surrendered to our British 
friends on leaving their lines. Having left the protection of the British troops, 
therefore, we did not find a dash across no man’s land in an arabanah a wholly reassur- 
ing experience, and, for the sake of our Salihtyah records at least, we were not a little 
relieved when we were met by an escort sent out by the pasha from Deir ez-Zér to 
receive us. We did not then know what we afterward learned, that a Jewish merchant 
approaching Deir ez-Zér had just been relieved by his escort of some thousands of 
pounds in gold which he had in his bags. It was, nevertheless, evident that our 
situation was too unsafe to permit us to visit the little Arab village of Tell ‘Ashara, 
perched on the mound covering Tirka, the ancient capital of Khana. Leaving it at 
some distance on our right, therefore, we traversed the plain of Khana and spent 
our first night among the Arabs in Meyadin. It does not fall within the purpose of 
this volume to recount our further adventures on this memorable journey through 
the tribes of the upper middle Euphrates, through whom we carried our records in 
safety. In another fortnight we were safe within the zone of civilization at Beirit, 
where Dr. Luckenbill developed his excellent negatives and we contemplated with 
great satisfaction the figures of our ancient Syrian friends from the walls of Salihiyah, 
figures which my field notes would enable us to endow with the hues and colors of life. 


CUT 
THE CITY AND FORTRESS OF DURA 


The plain of modern Deir ez-Zér, which furnished the agricultural basis for the 
support of a tiny kingdom, has already been discussed in the historical sketch of the 
city (Chapter I). A salience of the desert plateau from the west and southwest, 
thrusting forward across the plain clear to the river at Dura-Salihtyah, forms a 
buttress, quite isolated and protected on three sides by its natural situation. This 
buttress is about 80 meters in height above the level of the river.! As may be seen 
very clearly in the airplane view (Fig. 55, p. 93), the promontory drops on the north 
sheer to the channel of the Euphrates, which here flows east by south, curving at the 
same time directly to the east. The actual bed of the river has in modern times 
shifted away from the city, under the walls of which it must once have flowed. The 
two flanks of the natural buttress on northwest and southeast are sharply cut off from 
the rest of the plateau by two precipitous wadzs (AB and CD in Fig. 55), leaving only 
one side of the inclosed promontory, that is, the southwest (BC), accessible to attack. 
We have already seen that the strength of the position was not overlooked by the 
Assyrians, whose occupation of it gave it its name of “Stronghold” (dar). It is 
perhaps not an accident that the only wall of the fortress whose direction is not dictated 
by the local topography, that is, the wall on the weak southwest side toward the plateau 
(BC), extends in a line exactly northwest to southeast, which is the customary direc- 
tion for the sides of buildings and cities in ancient Babylonia and Assyria. 

It was on this buttress of the plateau that the Macedonian Nikanor laid out his 
city, on the customary rectangular, four-square plan. Our hurried stay afforded us 
no opportunity to examine the area within the fortress. The credit for discerning 
the date of this settlement, on chiefly archaeological grounds, must be given to Sarre 
and Herzfeld.2 The preliminary study of the city by Cumont, who was able to employ 
the spade there, amply confirmed this date and, although it has not yet proceeded far 
enough to reveal the arrangement of the city plan, it has furnished an account of three 

1 This figure is taken from Cernik (op. cit., p. 17). My own impression would not have made 


the place as high as Cernik reports; but he made careful profiles across the valley in this region and 
as an engineer is without doubt to be relied on. 

2 They describe it as “eine Ruinenstadt, die nur kurze Zeit bestand; die hellenistische Schicht 
ist die einzige und liegt unmittelbar unter der Oberfliche und auf dem gewachsenen Felsen. Die 
Zeit dieser Besiedelung ist . . . . die Wende unserer Aera, das erste christliche Jahrhundert. Das ist 
aber in dieser Landschaft die Zeit Palmyras”’ (op. cit., p. 394). Without the evidence of the paintings 
and additional inscriptions, not yet available at the time of Sarre and Herzfeld’s studies, it was 
impossible to discern that the city had endured in reality some six hundred years; but otherwise 


62 








THE CITY AND FORTRESS OF DURA 63 


public buildings and several houses (pp. 42-438 and 38). Neither are we as yet in a 
situation to offer any final discussion of the great walls which surround the city. 
Nevertheless, in view of the fact that it is likely to be long before any final investi- 
gation of the entire fortress can be made, a summary of the available information 
may be of some service. 

The great stronghold stretches across the entire promontory from wadi to wadi 
(AB to CD). The walls therefore follow the margin of the desert buttress, skirting 
the Euphrates side and the two wadzs; but on the southwest side crossing the promon- 
tory from the upper end of the northwest wad (B) to a point near the upper end of 
the other or southeast wadz (C). This was the only side on which the fortress was open 
to attack from the level face of the desert plateau on the southwest (see Fig. 
55 and Pl. IL). It is some four-fifths of a mile from wadz to wadi and the longest 
dimension of the great inclosure in a general northwest-southeast line is about 1,400 
meters as measured by Sarre and Herzfeld.! Its greatest width is about 1,000 meters. 
Along the river front (AD) the northern line of the fortress is about 850 meters in 
length, while the opposite wall, facing the plateau on the southwest side (BC), is about 
1,175 meters long. A large part of the inclosed area along the southwest wall and 
inward toward the center of the city is much higher than along the river wall, so that, 
as the ground falls away, the north or northeast wall along the Euphrates (AD) is 
much higher than elsewhere. On this somewhat lower ground along the height 
overlooking the river was erected an enormously massive castellum of vast size. It is 
50 meters wide and 390 meters, that is, almost a quarter of a mile, in length. Its outer 
corners are strengthened by salient towers. The only well-preserved gate (H) at 
present observable is in the southwest wall (BC). It is square in ground plan like 
the towers distributed at intervals along this wall and distinguishable in the airplane 
view. The masonry is composed of white, calcareous stone, called by Sarre and 
Herzfeld ‘‘Gipsstein.”’ The blocks are cut with rectangular faces and are of the same 
height throughout the same course. In size they vary greatly but are most frequently 
about one fourth to half a meter in height. 

The date of this important stronghold is still not entirely settled. Regarding the 
gate (£) in the southwest wall, Sarre and Herzfeld state that in its arrangement it is 


their determination of the date of the place is entirely correct. Similarly their conclusion that it 
was never included in the Roman or Byzantine Empire, but that it had flourished as an outpost of 
Palmyra, like the town Zenobia on the northeast of Palmyra, is only slightly to be modified by the 
new data now available. : 


1Qp. cit., pp. 388-90. All the other dimensions of the fortress employed in the foregoing discus- 
sion are likewise from this useful survey, which includes the first plan of the walls ever issued. The 
hasty sketch-plan which I included in my article in Syria is very incorrect and should now be super- 
seded by the plan of Sarre and Herzfeld (surveyed by Schulz) and the airplane view above published 
for the first time. At this writing Cumont’s new plan, which will displace all but the airplane view, 
has not yet appeared. 


64 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Byzantine in type. It is possible that the city walls were not the work of any one 
generation, and that this gate is a later construction. Two different constructive 
stages are quite certain in the cross-section of wall shown in Plate V. For the portion 
of the city wall overlooking the northwest wadi (AB) and containing the Zeus-Baal 
temple, however, a date not later than the latter half of the first century of our era is 
certain. 

The structural chronology is clear at this point (B). An examination of Plate 
VI, 1, discloses that the temple of Zeus-Baal at the extreme western corner of the fortress 
(see B, Fig. 55, p. 93) was erected in a salience of the fort which is protected by walls 
of great height and massiveness. The builders of the temple made as much use of the 





Fig. 37.—STARTING FOR AN AIRPLANE EXAMINATION OF THE KHANA-MARI PLAIN 


Through the kindness of General Cunningham, Dr. Luckenbill and the author were given an 
opportunity to study the region above Albu Kamal from the air. 


fortress masonry as they could. As we shall see in examining the temple (chapter iv), 
the south wall of Hall IT was already in position when the builders erected the temple. 
They utilized it as the south wall of the temple at this point. They plastered this sec- 
tion of the city wall and Ilasamsos covered it with his great painting of the family 
of Konon and Bithnanaia (p. 76). The city wall at this point, therefore, was already 
in existence before the execution of this painting of Ilasamsos, dated to the latter part 
of the first century of our era. As we have already indicated (p. 45), no Roman had 
ever seen this place before the invasion of Trajan in a.p. 115. It is quite evident, 
therefore, that this part of the city wall is pre-Roman in date, and we must therefore 
conclude that the massive defenses along the northwest wadi were already in existence 














THE CITY AND FORTRESS OF DURA 65 


before the Roman invasion of this region. Furthermore, these northwest walls 
seem to me in character precisely like the other ramparts of the city. Dating the 
fortress as pre-Roman, then, we must attribute it either to the Parthians or to the 
Macedonians, and I am inclined to attribute the great stronghold of Sdlihtyah to the 
Parthians. 

As far as the history of the frontier of the Roman Empire on the Euphrates is 
concerned, acceptance of the Parthian origin of the fortress of Dura would relieve 
us of the troublesome problem of accounting’ for the existence of such an important 
Roman stronghold in this region a generation before it was conquered by Roman 





Fig. 38.—Our WaGcons DRAWN UP FOR DEPARTURE FROM THE FortRESS OF DuRA 


It was too early in the morning for successful photography. The five Syrian wagons (arabanahs) 
replaced our seven automobiles which were the property of the British and were returned to them at 
Albu Kamal. In these wagons our expedition journeyed from Dura-Salihtyah to Aleppo. Apology 
is due Major Wright-Warren for the unfair flank movement executed by the camera squad before he 
was able to don his uniform. 


troops. It is quite clear that the place was occupied by a Roman garrison in the third 
century, and at that time the walls may have been strengthened or their thickness 
increased as shown in Plate V, 1. But there is nothing in the discoveries at Dura to 
indicate that a stable and lasting Roman frontier was established here two days’ 
march outside the permanent boundary established by Diocletian 35 miles farther 
up the Euphrates at the mouth of the Khabir. 

Regarding the identity of our fortified town with the Dura of the ancient sources, 
let it be noted that, according to Isidor of Charax, Dura was situated at a distance 


66 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


of 10 schoinot below the mouth of the Khabir,! that is, a matter of some 35 miles, 
just the distance between Salihtyah (Dura) and the mouth of the Khabir (see above, 
p. 24). In a.p. 363 when the Emperor Julian followed the left bank of the Euphrates, 
after passing the Khabfr he arrived in one day’s march at Zaitha or Zautha, after 
which the second day’s march brought him to Dura.2 While the ancient sources 
thus speak of the town as if it were on the left bank of the river, it is quite evident 
that there could not have been more than a settlement guarding the Mesopotamian 
shore and making the bridgehead secure. Such references to the arrival of a traveler 





Fic. 39.—Our Wacons LoapDING FoR DEPARTURE FROM Mbryap{N, AFTER THE First Day’s Marco 


at a city on one shore of a river, while the traveler himself may really have been on the 
other shore, are quite comprehensible and occur elsewhere. In view of the reference 
to Dura which we found in the painting of the tribune, and the evidence found by 
Cumont disclosing also Europos as the other name of the town, there can be no doubt 
regarding the identity of the place now called Salihtyah. 


1Jsidor of Charax, Mans. Parth., 4 (ed. C. Mueller, Geogr. graeci minores, p. 248): From the 
walled town of Nabagath, past which the Khabar flows, 4 schoinoi to Asicha; thence to Dura, 
6 schoinot; total, 10. 


2See Ammianus Marc. xxiii. 5. 8 and xxiv. 1.5; also Zosimus iii. 14, and compare Isidor of 
Charax, loc. cit. G. Hoffmann (op. cit., p. 166) discusses the position of Dura and arrives at the 
conclusion that it must be found nearly opposite the ruins of Kan-kaleh by Salihtyah. For the 
verification of the foregoing reference I am indebted to Cumont’s kindness. 





THE CITY AND FORTRESS OF DURA 67 


Later.—Since the above was written, and just as this book goes to the press, I 
have received the following important communication from M. Cumont: 

Since your departure I have received the report of Commandant Renard on our excavations. 
It contains especially a study of the fortifications of Dura, accompanied by plans. In com- 
paring it with the treatise of Philo of Byzantium (toward B.c. 200) I have gained the con- 
viction that the actual walls, except certain partial rebuildings, are those which Nicanor 
raised when he founded the Greek colony. I made a communication concerning it to the 
Académie last month. It will ultimately appear in Syria. I did not fail to call attention 
therein to your observation on the date of the tower where the great fresco is painted. It 
had, furthermore, also been made by Commandant Renard. 


There can be no doubt, therefore, regarding the pre-Roman date of the fortress 
of Dura. The doubt concerns only the choice between the Macedonians and the 
Parthians. M. Cumont believes the ‘‘walls’ were the work of Nikanor, intending 
probably to leave the date of the vast castellwm undetermined as yet. In any case 
it is obvious that the stronghold of Dura was built on oriental plans. It is oriental 
in architecture and displays just the characteristics which are found in Parthian 
buildings. If the fortress was built by Nikanor, he was following oriental models 
and we have in it, for example, one of the few Greek buildings which contains the arch. 


IV 


THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS-BAAL IN THE FORTRESS 
OF DURA 


The builders of the Zeus-Baal temple selected a site quite removed from the 
center of the city, whose rectangular block plan is clearly discernible in the airplane 
photograph if not in the halftone print employed in this volume. Almost at the apex 
of the westernmost angle of the fortress is a rectangular bastion which was chosen 
to contain the temple of the gods of the city. The walls of this bastion at this point 
inclose a rectangular area oriented almost exactly to the four cardinal points.) In 
order to utilize the fortress walls as those of the temple, the latter was also oriented 
in the same way. ‘The main axis of the temple therefore lies in an east and west line, 
with the entrance at the east and the shrine at the west. In this particular it is unlike 
the old Babylonian and Assyrian temples, which lie with their corners to the cardinal 
points. In ground plan, however, this temple of Zeus-Baal is identical with that of 
the old Babylonian temples. For it will be seen that a temple having an entrance 
from a court to transverse halls like this is clearly a sanctuary of the old Babylonian 
type, like the temple of E-mach at Babylon, for example.? Our hasty excavations with 
the East Indian troops (Fig. 54, p. 91) revealed enough of the structure to make these 
main arrangements of ground plan fairly certain. Since then these results have been 
confirmed and extended by the excavations of Cumont, which have disclosed a series 
of rooms on the right (north) of the court, as well as also on its front (east) side. In 
the center of the court, as we would have expected, Cumont’s excavations also revealed 
an altar, while a dittle naos was found by him at the northwest corner of the court. 
We owe to M. Cumont’s kindness the inclusion of the new data completing the ground 
plan (Fig. 56, p. 95). 

On the west side of the court we had found two columns in front of the inner halls 
at the left (south) of their entrance, and I concluded there must have been two more 
on the right (north) of this entrance. These two columns have since been found by 
Cumont. The four columns form a narthex in front of the temple halls. Within 
the narthex four steps in the middle lead up to the front door of Hall I. This door 
is not in the axis of the court. It will have been crowned by an arch, without doubt, 
like the doors of the Babylonian temples. Hall I to which it gives access averages 


1 Tt was this fact which led us to suppose that the walls of the city as a whole were also oriented 
to the cardinal points, as in the plan published in Syria, Vol. III. The airplane view shows the 
incorrectness of this conclusion. 


2 See Koldewey, Das wiedererstehende Babylon, Abb. 38, p. 56. 
68 











THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS-BAAL 69 


4.04 meters by 7.38 meters in size! We were not able to clear this hall, which lay 
deeply incumbered with rubbish (see Fig. 54). We cleared the north wall and found 
there the painting of the Roman tribune (Plate XXI) and the small paintings sur- 
rounding it (pp. 101-2). On the front wall of Hall I, north of the entrance door, we 
found also small paintings since reported fully by Cumont. We made no clearance 
at all of the south wall but could discern at the top, above the rubbish, traces of a 
larger painting later uncovered by Cumont and discussed herein (p. 90). 





Fie. 40.—Suetkn RamapAn-Bra Ipn SHALLAsSH AND A Group or His TRIBESMEN OF THE ALBU 
SARAI ABOVE DEIR EZ-ZOR 


The sheikh is the tall white figure at the left. He has turned away from the camera because of a 
disfigurement received in the Great War, part of his nose having been carried away by shrapnel. 
He is a shady character who at this time was receiving a subsidy from King Faysal and spending it 
on behalf of the Turkish Nationalists. Although he practically forced the writer to carry a con- 
fidential letter for him to Aleppo, he was most kind and hospitable and showed every kindness to the 
expedition in his great black madif (guest tent), visible here behind the people. Note the Euphrates 
cliffs at left. 


Between Hall I and Hall II there is a large arched opening with a width of nearly 
6 meters, that is, much too wide to be called a doorway. The spring of the arch 
which crowned it is preserved in the masonry near the top of the south abutment 
(see Plate VIIT). It is almost certain that the roof of Hall I was likewise a vault. 


1 Our hurried measurements varied somewhat from these figures, which are those of Cumont’s 
survey. His dimensions are used throughout this discussion of the temple. 


70 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Hall II, a transverse hall like the one before it, was the sanctuary proper. It is 
4.30 meters wide and in length about 8.60 meters. It is therefore longer than Hall I, 
with which it almost merges owing to the great width of the arched connection between 
the two halls. The walls of the entire northern half of this Hall II have been quarried 
out or have fallen down into the wadi immediately below-(Plate VI, 1). The south 
wall, which is preserved to a height of 7 meters (Plate VIII), is not a wall constructed 
in the course of erecting the temple. It is on the contrary a part of the original wall 
of the fortress in this west salience. It is clear at this point, therefore, that the fortress, 





Fie. 41.—A Group or ARAB RIFLEMEN OF SHEIKH RAMADAN-Bga IBN SHALLASH 


or at least this part of it, is older than the temple. This is especially evident in examin- 
ing the wall between Hall I and Hall II, as seen at the left in Plate VIII. For the 
wall between the two halls mentioned is built of smaller blocks than the masonry of 
the fortress at this point, and, moreover, it does not engage with the fortress wall, 
i.e., the south wall of Hall II! Traces at the top of this south wall would indicate 
that this hall was roofed by a lofty vault. 

In the axis of the building, in the middle of the sanctuary (Hall II), is a shrine 
of semicircular ground plan, with the open side of the semicircle facing toward the 


1 This last observation was made from the photographs after my return from Mesopotamia, 
and does not, I regret to say, appear in my notes made on the spot. 








THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS-BAAL 71 


front of the building, that is, eastward (see plan, Fig. 56, and Plate VI, 2). The 
niche in the center of the shrine was found empty as shown in the photograph. In 
the same shrine are two small niches, one on each side of the central niche. Of these 
two smaller niches the one on the south side is still preserved and may be seen in the 
photograph (Plate VI, 2). Both were likewise found empty. No door closing the 
front of the shrine, if it ever had one, is discernible in any of the traces we could find. 
This shrine closely resembles the niche containing the emperor’s statue as it is found 
in the surviving legionary chapels.! Our shrine, preserved for only about one-third 
of its presumable original height, should doubtless be restored with a half-dome at 
the top, as in the examples shown by Domaszewski (op. cit.). It is remarkable to 





Fig. 42—Tue Heap or Our Caravan DESCENDING FROM THE PLATEAU TO THE HUPHRATES NEAR 
TIBNI 


find here a shrine so strikingly like those of the Roman legions of the west in a temple 
of unmistakably oriental ground plan. 

The presence of the legionaries in the wall paintings of the temple, engaged in 
worshiping a group of divinities including the two local Fortunas (p. 97) so com- 
monly worshiped by the Roman troops, shows that this temple served during the 
Roman occupation in the third century as a garrison chapel. It should be noted, 
however, that Cumont did not find under the shrine any traces of a subterranean 
treasury, so frequently placed there by the legions of the west. At the same time the 
wall graffiti found by Cumont show clearly that the temple was devoted to the worship 
of Zeus Megistos, or Baalsamin. Associated with this Zeus-Baal in the graffiti were 
also Yarhibol and Aglibol, the three forming the well-known triad of gods of Palmyra. 
The people of Dura, like the legionaries later forming its garrison, were no doubt 
largely of Palmyrenian origin and carried to Dura the gods of Palmyra. 


1See Domaszewski, Die Religion des roemischen Heeres, Plate II, Fig. 4; also Cagnat, in Saglio- 
Pottier, Dict. des Antiquités, s.v. ‘‘Praetorium.” 


72 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


We must conclude, therefore, that this temple was originally erected by the people 
of Dura as a sanctuary sacred to the Palmyrenian triad: Zeus-Baal, Yarhibol, and 
Aglibol, and that the three niches in the shrine in Hall II were occupied by statues of 
these three divinities. The paintings which we found in this hall likewise show no 
connection with Rome or with legionary customs or ritual. They reveal furthermore 
the prominent part played by Konon, a noble civilian of the town, and his family in 
the original construction of the temple. These paintings, dated to the latter half of 
the first century of our era, and the inscription of Lysias (pp. 87-88), a member of 
Konon’s family, recording his erection of a dwelling for the priests connected with the 





Fig. 43.—Our WAGONS IN THE KHAN AT SABKHAH 


temple in A.D. 114, disclose to us quite unmistakably the fact that in this sanctuary 
we have an oriental temple which originally had nothing whatever to do with Rome 
or the worship of the emperors—a temple which had long existed and carried on its 
oriental ritual before the Roman occupation of the third century. 

In finishing the interior walls of the structure the builders employed a lime plaster 
spread directly on the surface of the masonry, in preparation for the mural paintings 
with which the building was to be decorated. These painted wall decorations extended 
almost from the floor to the ceiling. At least the lower portion of an upper range of 
paintings was observable above the lower painting on the south wall of Hall II and 
may be seen in Plate VIII. That such mural paintings in the so-called pagan temples 
of Syria later furnished the models for the wall paintings of the Christian churches of 





THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS-BAAL 73 


the same region cannot be doubted. When the overthrow of Zenobia and the destrue- 
tion of Palmyra left Christianity a freer hand for the rapid conquest of Syria by the 
church, it is obvious that the temples which the Christians appropriated were decorated 
with just such paintings as these at ancient Dura. Indeed it is not difficult to imagine 
that such painters as Hlasamsos of Dura, after the disappearance of Palmyra, would 
easily accept Christianity. Under the control of the new faith these artists would 
no longer paint Zeus-Baal, Yarhibol, and Aglibol; but, following the same traditions 
in style, technique, and composition, the successors of Ilasamsos must have painted 
the virgin, the Savior, the apostles, the great Church Fathers, and the newly converted 





Fic. 44.—SHEIKH SUWAN OF THE SABKHAH ARABS ABOVE DetrR Ez-ZOR ON THE UPPER EUPHRATES 


The sheikh is the second figure to the left. The head of a powerful group of Arabs, he made a 
very straightforward impression. He based great hopes on President Wilson and the fourteen points, 
knowledge of which had reached him even in this far-away Arab wilderness. His sturdy son, very 
proud of a new Mauser rifle, is the fourth figure. 


sovereigns, precisely as we have them in the mosaics of Ravenna, which are the lineal 
descendants of these mural paintings of ancient Dura. 

Architecturally we could gain but fragmentary impressions of the building. It 
evidently, like the architecture of Babylonia, displayed only structural forms. Its 
apparent unity of plan is deceptive. The intrusion of so un-Babylonian an element 
as a frontal colonnade at the rear of the court in front of the inner halls suggests 
more of a facade than such buildings of Western Asia originally possessed; but this 
colonnade was not really along the front of the building, which should properly be 


74 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


found in front of the court. The building was not considered enough of a unity to be 
exempt from extension and enlargement. The rooms immediately on the north of 
Halls I and II were not sufficient for the practical needs of the temple ritual, and a 
series of rooms along the north side of the court were afterward added. Outside the 
court on the east also a portico was erected, which turned eastward away from the 
temple and followed the city wall. One can easily imagine this outer porch as a place 
where much of the daily idling and gossiping of customary town life in the Orient 
commonly took place. Like the mosque, which is the descendant of the ancient 
oriental house and temple, the building really possessed no fagade, properly speaking, 
and these extensions which it suffered did not violate any real unity of design. 








Vv 


THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL 
TEMPLE 


The interior of Halls I and II was elaborately decorated with wall paintings. 
Before proceeding to a detailed description of these paintings it may be well to dispose 
of the technical questions involved, in so far as the notes from my brief examination 
will permit. The walls are covered with a white lime plaster, rather smooth, but with 
considerable deviation from plane, and on the average about 2 to 24 centimeters 
thick. The pigments are all water colors which have been mixed with some adhesive 
gum of such strength that the paint is still firm and hard. I noted the following 
colors and shades: black, white, maroon, red, brown, orange, purple, magenta, 
several shades of green, yellow, pale blue, and gray. Two distinct methods are notice- 
able. The contours of the figures are sometimes run in with black lines, like the early 
Italian primitives; other figures, however, are entirely without such contour lines. 
It is also noticeable that the chzaroscuro is not consistent in the same picture, but the 
light may be received from different directions in the same scene. Here and there, 
however, there is a total lack of any attention to the light and the tones are laid on 
flat. This seems to be the case especially in the figures in which the contours are 
plainly marked with black lines. 

The collapse of the roofs has exposed the paintings to the rains—not directly, for 
the halls were filled with rubbish, largely made of dried mud. This rubbish, resting 
against the walls, was doubtless converted into soft mud by the rains, with the result 
that the surface of the paintings was covered by a grayish black film of dried mud, 
which it was impossible for us to remove. This film of mud may also have been 
deposited when the roof leaked before its collapse, as the mud of the sun-dried brick 
vaulting was washed down. The mud film may be seen especially on the white 
garments in Plates IX and X. Under this obscuring surface the colors were well 
preserved and bright, except as dimmed by the film of mud. Without being cleaned 
the paintings were exceedingly difficult to photograph. Professor Luckenbill, to 
whom I owe the photographs, struggled manfully with this difficulty and his results 
are most creditable. J made very full notes on the colors, and the color plates herein 
are reproduced from enlarged photographs, hand-colored in accordance with my notes. 
In the main the tones are probably approximately correct, although the modern color 
printer has in places put too much brightness in the tone. Our colored photographs 
are the only surviving records of this painted wall, now much mutilated by the 
Arabs, especially the row of heads at the top. 


75 


76 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


THE EARLIER GROUP OF PAINTINGS 
HALL II, SOUTH WALL, C-D (PLATE VIII) 
The Wall of Bithnanaia 


It was the wall C-D in Hall II which was first noticed by Captain Murphy as 
bearing paintings and it was this wall which we found cleared when we first began work. 
The paintings which it bears are in two registers, beginning almost at the floor. They 
probably extended entirely to the ceiling, or at least to the spring of the vaulting. The 
upper register, however, has entirely disappeared, with the exception of the feet of 
one figure at the lower left-hand corner (Plate VIII). The plaster bearing the upper 
painting has fallen off but the wall survives to a height of nearly 7 meters above the 
chapel floor. The lower register bears the largest and most important painting in 
the chapel (Plate VIII). Indeed it is the most important monument thus far found 





Fia. 45.—Our Horses BEING WATERED IN THE EUPHRATES FOR THE Last TIME, ABOVE MESKENAH, 
Two Days’ JOURNEY FROM ALEPPO 


at Dura. It is an impressive composition 4.30 meters long and nearly 4 meters high. 
The top of the cornice over the whole scene is almost 4 meters from the floor. 

The fallen plaster has carried away the upper right-hand portion of the lower 
painting, depriving us of one head, the major part of two more, and the top of a fourth. 
Otherwise the lower painting is almost intact. We shall call it the wall of Bithnanaia 
after the gorgeous lady who is so prominent in the painting. This ambitious composi- 
tion consists of a row of eleven figures, eight filling the entire breadth of the available 
wall (4.30 meters) with three more in front of the eight mentioned, the whole group 
of eleven figures being flanked by an architectural background. A gorgeously 
appareled lady stands a little at the left of the middle, while on the right are ranged 
four men bearing green branches and on the left stand three ministrants who are 
carrying on religious ceremonies. Numbering these people from left to right, the 
figures one to eight, who form the main group, are curiously disconnected from 








THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE <7. 


the architectural background against which they are placed. Let us consider first 
this architectural background, which is in several planes. In the main it is 
made up of three doorways. Out of the central doorway the lady (the fourth figure) 
seems to step forth. The two door leaves in this doorway are yellow and paneled and 
the one on the right is open. On the right of this door the yellow paneling continues 
to a double door behind the seventh and eighth figures. The right leaf of this last 
door is also open. On the left of the double door behind the lady, at the left end of 
the painting, is a porch with two piers, behind which is an open door. It also is a 
door of two leaves, one leaf being closed. While it would be difficult to determine 
what kind of a building the painter has here endeavored to represent, it is likely to have 
been some part of this chapel itself, in view of the ceremonies depicted. 





Fic. 46.—Moprern ALEPPO AND THE Mounp oF THE ANCIENT CITY 


Aleppo was a small city kingdom as far back as the fifteenth century B.c. The mound covering 
the ancient walled town now rises in the midst of the modern city. It is here seen from the east, as 
we approached it fourteen days out from Baghdad. 


With regard to the relation of the figures to the architecture, the first and second 
figures are depicted standing with feet nearly if not accurately on the floor, but the 
third figure places one foot on the base of a tall vase which belongs to the second figure. 
As this position of the foot is inconceivable, it raises the question whether the feet of 
the first and second figures are actually on a pink floor. This rectangle of pink may 
conceivably be intended to represent a vertical surface, a doorstep under the threshold 
(see Plate IX), a doorstep in a plane in advance of the black and white floor which 
begins on the right of the blue vase. The fourth figure (the lady) stands partially 
inside the middle doorway and evidently leans forward, bringing her head outside 
the door lintel (see Plate XI). The floor on which both she and the third figure stand 
is black, or black and white. The first to the fourth figures inclusive show some rela- 
tion to the architecture against or in which they are placed; but the four figures at 


78 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


the right, that is, the fifth to the eighth, stand, all four, with their feet far above their 
black and white floor, as if floating ike phantoms (see Plate VIII). This is especially 
noticeable with the fifth figure, whose right foot projects over and far above the 





Fic. 47.—Tue Court or A Mosque IN ALEPPO 


black floor behind the central doorway (see Plate XI). In front of the central doorway 
there seems to have been at least one step, which probably appears again also below 
the seventh figure and just behind the young girl (tenth figure, Plate X VIII) and may be 
in the same plane with the possible pink doorstep at the left (Plate IX). At the right 


a! 








THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 79 


of this black step and below the fifth and sixth figures (Plate XI) one can discern the 
base of a square pier or a pilaster, over which the left foot of the fifth figure and the 
right of the sixth have been painted. Behind the seventh figure (Plate XVI) the 
lower edge of the panel of the (closed) door leaf cuts through the instep of his right 
foot. It is evident that these four figures (fifth to eighth) have been painted in either 
very unskilfully or as an unforeseen after-thought. 

The three young people, the ninth, tenth, and eleventh figures (Plate VIII), who 
seem to stand below the row of eight adults, are in a very advanced plane and no traces 
of anything below their feet, nor even of their feet themselves, have survived. 

If there is no homogeneity as between the architectural background and the figures 
placed against it, there is also a similar lack of proper correlation as between the figures 
themselves. This latter lack of correlation is so noticeable as to indicate that the 
painting is the work of two different men, working presumably at two different times. 
The first and the second figures, with the exception of the faces, disclose almost no 
shadows on the flesh forms, so that the legs are finished in flat tones, but the light in 
the faces is well treated, especially in the second figure (see Plates IX and X). Now 
in the architecture the light comes from the right and in the first and second figures it 
comes from the left. Turning to the others beyond the second (that is, to the third 
to eleventh figures), it is noticeable that the flesh forms do not display the black 
contour lines of the first and second figures. They are well treated as to light. The 
legs look round, with shadows along the edges and light in the middle. This is so 
different from the first and second figures that we must conclude that these two were 
done by a different hand. This conclusion is perhaps confirmed by the architecture, 
if we are correct in concluding that the floor under the first and second figures is pink 
while under the rest it is black or black and white. With regard to the composition as 
a whole, the grouping of the tall figures in a long line across the observer’s line of vision 
strikingly suggests the similar grouping in the oldest Byzantine compositions at 
Ravenna (see Plate XXII). Furthermore, just as in our Dura painting, in the Ravenna 
mosaics all the figures face the observer. This question can be better understood, how- 
ever, when we have examined the wall of the tribune (Plate X_ XI, and see pp. 94-101). 

Turning to the details of the figures, the following matters are of consequence: 


FIRST FIGURE (PLATES VIII, IX, AND XIII) 


Figure of a man standing with weight on left foot, and right foot forward. He 
wears a sleeved garment hanging from the neck and shoulders almost to the ankles. 
It falls from the left shoulder down to the right leg and returns upward in front to 
fall over the extended left forearm. It is white with pink borders down each side of 
the middle of the front and is gathered in at the waist by a girdle with heavy folds. 
There is some effort to paint the ight on the drapery. The head and the upper part 
of the ears are entirely covered by a close-fitting pink cap with a loose, full peaked 


80 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


tip which falls over to the left. The man has a slight beard along the jaw and chin 
and a scanty moustache. His feet are shod with white shoes gathered in at the 
instep by a black cord over a tongue which rises in the middle in front. The flesh 
hue is a deep brown. A necklace, which he holds in his right hand, hangs down in a 
straight line; it is pink with a pale blue lotus flower forming each end. The cords for 
fastening the necklace issue from the lotus flowers like stems. A dumb-bell-like object 
(thunderbolt ?) in his left hand has pink balls and pale blue stem. 


SECOND FIGURE (PLATES VIII, IX, X, AND XII) 
Figure of a tall man standing with weight on left foot, and right foot forward. 
He wears a sleeved garment which hangs from the neck to the lower calves; it is white 





Fic. 48.—Tue VALLEY OF THE ORONTES IN NoRTH SYRIA 


Our party in returning followed this valley southward to the sources of the river 


with a narrow girdle knotted in front. There is an effort to paint the hight on the 
folds of the garment. On his head he wears a tall conical pointed white cap painted 
in one flat tone and covering the tops of the ears. His feet are bare. The flesh hue 
is a deep brown. A vase beside him has a tall fluted base mounted on three legs, 
the whole being colored pale blue with black contour lines. The vase is filled with a 
transparent fluid, presumably water, into which the man inserts a branch or plant 
held in the right hand. The plant, which is rather faint, is done in black and, ascending 
with several drooping branches, crosses a pitcher held in the man’s left hand. In 
this left hand, besides the pitcher already mentioned, the man holds a plate bearing 
two knives. The pitcher, the plate, and the knife blades are all pale blue, while the 
knife handles are pink. 








THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 81 


THIRD FIGURE (PLATES VIII, IX, XI, XIII, AND XIV) 


A tall man standing with weight on left foot, and right foot forward. He wears a 
sleeved garment hanging smooth without any of the folds of drapery observable in 
the second figure. On his head is a conical cap painted with noticeable observance 
of chiaroscuro and in this respect better than the similar cap worn by the second 
figure. The ears are not covered at the top by the cap as in the case of the second 
figure. The feet, which are bare, are without the black contours defining the feet of 
the second figure and, as in the case of the cap, there is an evident effort to paint the 
light and give the flesh forms roundness. The face exhibits soft contrasts without 
the hard lines observable in the face of the second figure. The eyes are fine; there is 
no sharp line marking the lower lid, as in the face of the second figure, only a soft 





Fig. 49.—Tur WeLcomMEp MEDITERRANEAN SHORES Norra or BreirttT 


dark shade. Like the first two men, he wears a scanty beard. The flesh hue is a deep 
brown. Beside him is a burning censer on a tall slender standard. The man extends 
his right hand above the censer so that it is enveloped in the rising flames, a gesture 
probably indicating that he is dropping incense into the fire. The flames are, strangely 
enough, indicated by black lines; the column is white with black contours. There is 
a vertical scratch which mars the left edge of this hand just where it is marked off 
from the yellow of the door in the background. In his left hand, just as in the case 
of the second figure, this man carries two knives, supported, in this case, however, 
upon a gray bowl. This vessel has a red interior, which may have been meant for 
either blood or wine. The knife blades, which are marred by the chipping of the 
plaster, are a graduated gray and totally different from those held by the second 
figure; the handles are red. Both the blades and the handles are skilfully done with 
treatment of the light and without the black contours shown in the second figure. 


82 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


The points of the knife blades and the right-hand portion of the bowl are covered by 
the full sleeve of the fourth figure (the lady)—a curious error in composition, because 
the fourth figure clearly stands in a plane farther back than that of the third. In 
this connection it may be noted that the sleeve covering the man’s upper arm just at 
the level of the knife handles has not been properly correlated with the yellow of the 
background and draws in too suddenly toward the man’s left side. There is some 
indication that this bad drawing has been hastily corrected by inserting a thin tri- 
angular area of white just touching the left angle of the knife handles. 


t at % Pe 
eS. * . . os : 


oie 





Fic. 50.—Recorps or MopERN ConQquEST AMONG THE MEMORIALS OF ANCIENT CONQUERORS ON 
THE MEDITERRANEAN CLIFFS AT THE Dog River NortuH or BEtrttT 


FOURTH FIGURE (PLATES VIII, XI, AND Xv) 


A gorgeously dressed woman standing with weight on left foot (barely visible) and 
right foot forward. Her right hand is raised to the level of her neck and held palm 
outward. The left arm apparently hangs down and is entirely concealed by the full 
folds of her mantle. She wears a long white overmantle with full sleeves hanging 
over a bodice of magenta-colored stuff. On her head is an elaborate cap with a 
rectangular front covered by a magenta-colored headcloth draped and hanging to the 
shoulders. Only the front of the cap shows under the draped headcloth. Her ears 
are adorned with earrings. About her neck she wears a collar having the appearance 
of four rings of metal. Hanging down on her breast is a necklace with pendants 
along the lower edge. Four of these pendants are visible on the right of the upraised 








THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 83 


hand and two on the left of the thumb of the same hand. Below this necklace and 
perhaps suspended from it is an oval medallion in elaborately wrought metal work. 
The reticulate border is black, dotted with white spots, the whole border being against 
a gray background. The oval interior is purple, as if made up of some large precious 
stone like amethyst. Below the oval medallion is a round one with interior design 
made up of mixed colors in red, green, white, and purple, so mingled that the design 
cannot be discerned. It is possibly some precious stone of highly varied coloring. 
To this round medallion is appended an elaborate pendant in the form of a rec- 
tangular frame made up of three vertical rows of seven spherical beads alternately 
white, red, and green. In these details the color plate (Plate XI) is not strictly 
accurate. They may be discerned very faintly in Plate XV. Two pendants hang 
down from this rectangular bead design. Each of these two is made up of two eylindri- 
cal beads, a red one at the top and one of pearl gray just below it, while each of the 
two terminates in a globular pearl-gray bead. An effort has been made in Figure 57 
(p. 99) to make the details of this elaborate Palmyrene jewelry more clear; but my field 
sketches were too hasty to make details always certain. As we have already noted, 
the sleeve of the lady’s right arm curiously interferes with the bowl and the knives 
held by the third figure, almost as if the knives were thrust into her side. She wears 
low shoes painted white, which show partially below the white overgarment. The 
flesh hue of the lady is somewhat lighter in tone than that of the three ministrants 
(first, second, and third figures). The relation of the lady’s figure to the architecture 
has already been discussed above, but it may be noted that she has not stepped forth 
so as to be entirely outside the open door. Her left foot, on which her weight seems 
to rest chiefly (her left shoulder is lower than her right), is within the doorway although 
her head is entirely outside of the lintel and is even projected against the ceiling of the 
portico. 
FIFTH TO EIGHTH FIGURES (PLATES VIII AND XVI) 

Four standing men, all with weight on the left foot, with right foot forward. 
Each has the right hand raised, palm outward, in a posture like that of the lady 
(fourth figure). The left hand, projecting from the garment, holds a green branch 
conventionally painted, which might be either the tip of a palm or an olive. The 
head of the eighth figure is entirely gone, those of the sixth and seventh nearly so, 
and also the upper part of the head of the fifth. No traces of a cap or headdress are 
visible but two masses of heavy black hair hang down on either side of the head of 
the fifth figure. As far as visible, all these men are smooth-shaven. This is certainly 
the case with the fifth and sixth figures and probably with the seventh. This lack of 
beard evidently indicates the youth of at least three of these four persons (see p. 88). 
All four wear purple undergarments over which hangs a white overgarment from the 
shoulders to the lower calves. This white overgarment, not unlike a draped toga or 
himation, is edged down the front with purple on both sides in such a way as at first 


84 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


sight to look deceivingly like purple breeches, and we at first thought they were the 
well-known Persian breeches, but this is probably not the case. This white over- 
garment exposes the sleeves of a purple shirt and hangs over the left arm, just freeing 
the hand bearing the green branch. AIl these men wear low white shoes like the first 
figure but with white cords for tying. These figures are all painted with the same 
technique and in the same manner as the third and fourth. Their extraordinary 
lack of correlation with the floor and the architecture behind them, so that they float 
like phantoms, has already been noticed above. 


NINTH FIGURE (PLATES VIII AND XVII) 


A boy standing before the line of eight adults in a plane well in advance. The 
feet are gone, but the right hand is raised, palm outward, as in the case of the five 
persons above (fourth to eighth figures). The left hangs down and carries a small 
pitcher. The lad is bareheaded and wears a long white sleeved overgarment edged 
with red. The figure is very well painted. 


TENTH FIGURE (PLATES VIII AND XVIII) 


A girl standing before the eight adults in the same advanced plane as the ninth 
figure. The feet are gone, but her right hand is raised, palm outward, in the same 
posture as the ninth figure. The left arm hangs down and bears an object which was 
possibly a purse. Her cap, of the same form as that of the lady above, is covered 
with a full pink drape which falls down to mingle with her full garment, which is 
likewise pink. Under this pink outer garment is a black bodice. She wears earrings, 
and below a collar of four rings, like that of the lady above, is a similar elaborate 
necklace with two medallions and two pendants. 


ELEVENTH FIGURE (PLATES VIII AND pa Se) 


A standing boy in the same advanced plane as the ninth and tenth figures. 
His feet also are gone, but his right hand is raised to the level of his breast and grasps 
the two ends of a necklace exactly like that which hangs straight from the hand of the 
first figure. The boy holds the necklace as it would be when the two ends are gathered 
together about the neck of a wearer, his hand grasping the tight cords between the 
two lotus flowers, which appear on either side of his hand. The left hand hangs down 
and is seemingly empty. The head is bare, the garment is like that of the ninth 
figure. General Cunningham stated to the writer that this was the best-painted face 
on the entire wall; but before we saw it some iconoclastic native, possibly a prowling 
Arab, had barbarously scratched the face. 

It is evident, as we have before stated, that the scene depicts a religious ceremony 
with two ministrants at the left (second and third figures). These two are evidently 
priests. Each wears the pointed white cap, a white garment without any colored 





: 
7 
: 
4 
; 





THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 85 


border, has the feet bare, and is engaged in a cultus act, with much the same imple- 
ments. The other nine figures are also sharing in the religious observances, for all 
the remaining figures except the eleventh (that is, fourth to tenth) stand in a posture 
of worship, with the right hand raised, palm outward. As is well known, this is a 
characteristic posture of Babylonian worship from the earliest times—a posture which 
we often find on early Babylonian seals. The act of thrusting the branch into the 
water also suggests old Babylonian ritual in the ceremony of the “tree of life,” origi- 
nally a palm branch thrust into a vase of water. We evidently have here one of the 
eclectic cults of Syria, about which we know so little, and in which we expect to find 





Fic. 51.—GErnNERAL CUNNINGHAM WITH OFFICERS AND PART OF OUR EXPEDITION AT THE SOUTHWEST 
GATE OF THE DuRA FORTRESS 


General Cunningham stands at the left. To his interest in the wall paintings in the ancient 
fortress it was largely due that we had the opportunity of studying and recording them. The 
British East Indian troops have established a battery on the top of the fortified gate. 


not only old Babylonian influences like those already mentioned, but later also a 
plentiful infusion of neo-Persian elements. 

In this connection it is important to notice that the artist has inserted on the 
lower portions of seven figures the names of the persons depicted (Fig. 58, p. 101). 
These names reveal to us the fact that seven of the people depicted in the painting 
belong to one family, only the two priests and two of the three children being omitted. 
It is probable that the two children belong to the same family, and their names may 


86 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


have been lost at the bottom of the painting where much has disappeared. We may 
therefore reconstruct the following family tree: 


NIKOSTRATOS (whose portrait does not appear) 
KONON I (first figure, head of the family) 
| 


| | 
BITHNANAIA DIOGENES LYSIAS PATROKLOS 


par v3 II 
? 
—N———§ 


In this family group Konon I, the first figure standing at the extreme left separated 
from the others by the two priests, is head of the family. Beyond the two priests 
(that is toward the right, their left) are Konon I’s four children, a daughter and three 
sons. The third son, Patroklos, has his son Konon II (grandson of Konon I) standing 
next to him (eighth figure). Of the three children in front, one whose name is not 
clearly preserved, was a son of Konon, perhaps Konon II, and in that case the group 
includes four generations. . 
In the names of these people, as in the art of the paintings surviving in this chapel, 
we note the obvious presence of elements both Greek and oriental. Although her 
father bore the Greek name Konon, the lady’s name is evidently oriental. The resto- 
ration of the | in Bithnanaia, favored by the small size of the lacuna and the surviving 
traces, is certain; and it is obvious that we must recognize in the second part of this 
compound name the name of the well-known goddess Navata (II Mace. 1:13). With 
his customary sagacity Clermont-Ganneau has discussed early Syrian names of this 
form having Na (here Bu§) as their first element.! To his list of names (op. cit., p. 416) 
we should now add that of “Bithnanaia, daughter of Konon.”” To Clermont-Ganneau’s 
discussion of the family relationships involved in names of this form we will not attempt 
to add anything further, but for the sake of readers who may not have followed the 
literature of the question we may recall Néldeke’s notice of the fact that in 
De Vogiié’s Syrie centrale? the statue dedication inscription No. 29 bears the name of 
Zenobia in the form "2TM2 N20DO=Septimia Bathzabbai, meaning “Septimia, 
daughter of Zabbaeus.”’ Oberdick*® has contended that filiation is indicated in Pal- 
myrenian Aramaic by M72 (feminine of 72) and not by the Hebraizing form M2, 
. so that when M2 is found in Palmyrenian it is used as “filia doni,”’ meaning ‘‘a woman 
possessing.’’ He therefore renders Zenobia’s Semitic name as ‘‘ Daughter (= possessor) 


1 See Clermont-Ganneau, ‘‘Odeinat et Vaballat,” Revue Biblique, XXIX (1920), pp. 382-419. 


2 ZDMG, XXIV (1870), p. 96. 
3 Zeitschr. frir die oesterr. Gymnasien, XLI (1890), 699-703. 





THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 87 


of Brilliance ("2X M3).” It cannot be said that this new name Bithnanaia favors 
Oberdick’s contention, for the lady can hardly have been designated as possessor 
of the goddess Nanaia. On the other hand she might be called ‘‘ daughter of Nanaia” 
without in any sense conflicting with the addition of her father’s name in the genitive. 
Clermont-Ganneau’s essay already cited should also be consulted on this point. 

In contemplating this group of eleven people who look down upon the shrine in 
the middle of this transverse sanctuary hall, one cannot but feel the probability that 
the lady who occupies so prominent a position in the scene at the head of all the children 
of Konon the elder was a woman of rank and power, an Aramaean princess, reminding 
us, even in the form of her Semitic name, very much of Zenobia of Palmyra, which 
was but 140 miles distant. May she not have been a local ruler of this region, or 
the wife of one of the “duces,’’ such as Zenobia was in the beginning ? 





Fig. 52.—Our Camp In THE ANCIENT FortRESS OF DURA 


At the right, the west end of the massive castellum; at the left in the background, the tents of 
Major C. T. Wright-Warren, who was commandant of the post. Our camp was in front of his tents. 
In the foreground is the white limestone tomb of a young British officer killed with all his party by 
the Arabs a short time before our arrival. 


In any case there can be little doubt that the family of Konon, depicted here so 
prominently in the sanctuary of the temple, was the leading family of Dura. The 
names of Konon I and of his son Patroklos are mentioned in inscriptions found in the 
assembly building in the town by Cumont.! Lysias? (probably one of the unnamed 


1 Comptes rendus (1923), p. 22. 


2 The restoration AYCIAC for the sixth name, first suggested by Torrey, exactly suits the 
surviving traces and is now confirmed by the inscription of Lysias in the court (p. 88). 
It may further be mentioned in this connection that the lower part of this painting is covered with 
numerous graffiti in such rapid cursive that they are difficult to read. In the few hours at our disposal 
it was quite impossible to spend any time on them. They have been collected since our visit by 
Cumont. 


88 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


two children), son of Konon II and grandson of Patroklos, was the one who built a 
dwelling for the use of this temple alongside the court, and an inscription found in the 
court commemorates this pious act.! An interesting light is thrown upon the custom 
of granting to such influential families places of honor on the temple walls, by an 
inscription or memorandum on a portion of the wall of Hall I.2 It designates an 
empty space as not yet assigned to anyone, and therefore still to be regarded as avail- 
able for assignment to some personage of sufficient importance to claim it. The 
prominent place assigned to the family of Konon I is conclusive evidence of their 
power and importance. 

The data furnished by this painting, combined with the other inscriptions, are 
quite conclusive evidence of the date to be assigned to the building and to the paintings. 
Konon I is mentioned in an inscription in the town which is dated in the year a.p. 61.3 
Lysias, son of Konon II and grandson of Patroklos, built his dwelling in the temple in 
A.D. 114.4 It is evident that the painting was executed at a time when the children 
of Konon I were still young, for all of his sons are depicted as beardless, although in 
the case of Patroklos we must conclude that he was probably about forty years old. 
The chronology of the family may be reconstructed as follows: 


Nixostratos. Probably born just before the beginning of the Christian Era, and already 
dead at the time of the great painting (about a.p. 80). 

Konon. Probably born about a.p. 15; known to be living in a.p. 61; shown in painting 
(about A.D. 80) as about sixty-five years old. 

PatrokiLos. Probably born about a.p. 35; shown in painting beardless although over 
forty years old (a.p. 80). 

Konon IJ. Probably born about a.p. 55; shown beardless in painting at over twenty years 
of age (A.D. 80); built dwelling in Zeus temple in a.p. 114, when about fifty-nine 
years old. 

UnnaMED Son. Probably born about A.p. 70; shown as a lad in painting in A.p. 80. 


The fixed points in the foregoing scheme will not permit much shifting of the sug- 
gested dates. We may conclude with certainty that the painting was executed in 
the last quarter of the first century. The building of the temple may reach back to 
the middle decades of the same century, when Konon I was in the prime of life. 


HALL II, WEST WALL, D-E (PLATE XX, 1) 


The west or rear wall of Hall II is preserved only at the left (south) end (D-H on 
plan, Fig. 56). On this wall there was a large painting (Plate XX, 1) with figures on a 
considerably larger scale than on the adjoining south wall just described. In the 
foreground is a remarkable attempt to represent a stony landscape with scanty 
vegetation in the crannies. Crowning a hill is an architecturally developed rectangular 
base, perhaps an altar; but the upper part, with the right-hand corner, is gone. At 


1 Comptes rendus (1923), pp. 21 f. 2 Tbid., pp. 30-31. 3 Tbid., p. 22. 4 Ibid., pp. 21-22. 





THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 89 


the left of the altar stood two men. Three legs only survive. The two feet which 
show are shod with shoes which turn up at the toes. These figures wear short, elabo- 
rately patterned kilts with rich gold-colored border. ‘The figure at the left carries 
a tall shield, occupying the space at D directly next to the south wall at the left end 
of this west wall. The shield is decorated with the painting of a lady holding up 
her skirts with her left hand, her right hand raised in front but lost by damage to 
the wall. The only other trace of armor on these figures is what are probably greaves 
on the front of the legs. At the right of the so-called altar is a horse running off to 





Fig. 53.—Ovur First GLIMPSE OF THE PAINTINGS 


The semicircular shrine (see plan, Fig. 56) covers the lower part of the great painting on the wall 
of Bithnanaia (Pl. VIII). This is the wall marked A in PI. V, 2. 


the right. Only his hind legs show. <A curious decorated object, coming down, 
seemingly, from the back of the horse toward the feet of the man, ends in an elaborately 
bordered volute, which pushes into the landscape. Below, at the extreme right, in a 
part not included in the photograph (Plate XX, 1), are traces of a wheel, perhaps 
belonging to a chariot. 


HALL II, EAST WALL, B—-C (PLATE VIII) 
Facing the wall just described and at right angles to the wall of Bithnanaia, the 


east wall of Hall II is plastered but bears no paintings, as may be seen in Plate VIII. 
On the thickness of this east wall (A—B) on the south side of the entrance to Hall II 


90 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


and facing north is the figure of a priest (see Plate VIII, extreme left) practically 
identical in posture and equipment with the second figure on the wall of Bithnanaia. 
The plant which he is thrusting into the water is not, however, visible and his vase 
and standard are much less elaborate. 

This completes the series of paintings in Hall II. It is evident that such subjects 
as the customs, the cultus equipment and the ceremonies being carried on, the identity, 
racial connection, origin, and so on, of these religious practices and of the people 
engaged in them, might be much more fully discussed; but they must be left to future 
study, the chief purpose of this report being to make the paintings accessible. 


HALL I, SOUTH WALL 


When the waning light forced us to cease work on the Zeus-Baal temple, we had 
been able to clear only the north and east walls of Hall I, and these only partially. 
The hall was still filled with rubbish, above which we could discern projecting traces 
of paintings on the south wall. It may be that these are the traces which were seen by 
Sarre (p. 57). It was with great reluctance that we were obliged to leave without 
investigating this hall farther. When it was cleared by Cumont, he found a door in 
the south wall. This of course reduced the amount of space available for decoration, 
and the painting which his clearance disclosed on this wall is not as ambitious a compo- 
sition as that on the corresponding wall of Hall II; but it has furnished some very 
important and valuable data,! especially the name of the artist. In an architectural 
setting between truncated columns of pink hue, three standing figures, all men, are 
ranged across the observer’s line of vision, as on the wall of Bithnanaia. Each figure 
is clothed in a sleeved tunic and a white mantle crossed by bands of various shades. 
All three are engaged in the same ritual act, dipping a leafy branch into a tall vase 
with the right hand, and with the left extending a blue plate as if for a liba- 
tion. Cumont notes that these blue plates are evidently of the same blue enamel 
ware of which the débris in the town has furnished a number of examples. It is the 
same act of worship which we have also observed in Hall II in the great painting 
(Plate VIII). As in the great painting also, these three figures of Hall I face directly 
toward the observer. Beside the third personage we find leaning against one of the 
columns a child, of whom only the feet have survived. Similar paintings covered the 
wall at the right and above, but very little of them now survives. 

It is evident that these three figures are intended to be portraits, for all three 
have their names appended, written in black paint as on the south wall in Hall II. 
The first two are of the same form asin Hall II: Avotas ’Axteta and Avotas Bapyarovs. 
In the third, however, we find far more than the name: ’Aro\Nodarnp |’ APnvodapou 
rod | Znvodorov kal Zn | vodorov Tov €£dded | Hov adrod INacapcos | éypade (“Tlasamsos has 
painted Apollophanes, the son of Athenodoros, the son of Zenodotos, and his first 


1 Cumont, Les Travaux Archéologiques, pp. 65-66. 











THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 91 


cousin Zenodotos”).1_ This signature by the artist himself is of far-reaching importance 
in the history of art. His name, meaning as it does “the Sun is god,” is purely 
Semitic and reveals to us the author of these paintings in the Zeus-Baal temple as an 
oriental practicing the art of portraiture and composition. In view of the discovery 
of unmistakable efforts to paint the light by Egyptian artists at least as far back as 
the Nineteenth Dynasty in Egypt,? and probably already in the Eighteenth, these 





Fig. 54.—Britisp East Inptan Troops at Our DisPosiITION FOR EXCAVATING THE GROUND PLAN 
OF THE TEMPLE IN THE ANCIENT FortTRESS OF DURA 


The ancient floor level of the temple is at the feet of the workmen on the left. The high mound 
above and beyond them is rubbish covering the temple court and its first hall. It has since been 
removed by Cumont. 


paintings of ancient Dura may fairly raise the question whether the Greek “shadow- 
painters” of the Hellenistic Age really originated the earliest chiaroscuro technique. 
It is not unlikely that Greek civilization borrowed this accomplishment, as it borrowed 


1Cumont, ibid., p. 66. ‘‘His first cousin Zenodotos”’ is of course the child standing beside 
Apollophanes, as Cumont has noted. The correction from ’Amo\\édwpov to ’ArodAopavny was kindly 
furnished by Cumont. 

2In the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for December, 1922 (Part 2, p. 52), Mr. N. 
de Garis Davies calls attention to various instances of true shading in the Nineteenth Dynasty tomb of 
Queen Nefretiri at Thebes. This phenomenon here and also in the tomb of the official Userhet, who 
lived in the preceding reign of Seti I, had been already mentioned in Schifer’s second edition of his 
Von dgyptischer Kunst (Leipzig, 1922, pp. 57-58) as the result of a letter from Davies elaborating a 
paragraph in his review of Schafer’s first edition (1919) in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, VII 


92 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


so many others, from the culture of the Orient, and then, as they so often did, the 
Greeks raised the new acquisition to a degree of excellence and refinement which it 
had never known before. It is not a little significant that the “shadow-painters”’ 
arose in Greece after the penetration of the Orient by the conquests of Alexander the 
Great, conquests which carried the Greeks directly across the Syrian communities 
where the art of Ilasamsos flourished. Compositions of this style, as Cumont has 
noted,! displaying human figures separated by columns of pink color, were still 
produced in Syria in the ninth century of our era and were found by Musil at 
Kuseir ‘Amra.2 These later examples suggest the persistence of an ancient oriental 
school long at home on this soil. Such artists as Ilasamsos were available at Palmyra 
in the age of her splendor, and these paintings of Dura have furnished us the best 
surviving examples of the art of Palmyra. 


THE LATER GROUP OF PAINTINGS 


When I first published the Dura paintings in the pages of Syria, it was impossible 
to establish their date with precision. The inscriptions since then recovered by 
Cumont have made it clear that the large paintings in the southern portions of both 
Hall I and Hall Il comprise a group which we must date in the last quarter of the first 
century; while the small paintings from the northern portion of Hall I, especially 
the painting of the Roman tribune engaged in worship with his troops, are to be dated 
about a century and a half later, that is, about the middle of the first half of the third 
century. They likewise form a group by themselves, distinguished most obviously 
by their small size, but also by a style less clear and defined, displaying far less ability 
to treat the light. They resemble hastily thrown together sketches, blocking out 
blurred compositions which were never later given any precision of detail. They are 
also much more limited in their color resources. On the whole they represent a 
decline of art from the high standard of the age of Ilasamsos. 


(1921), p. 225. Yet Davies in his review feels that “it is pretty clear that it is only the deepened 
colour that has been observed, and not its origin in form as a cast shadow.”’ He adds: ‘‘ Although I 
know no instance of it under Akhenaten [Ikhnaton, XVIII. Dynasty], I think his artists must have 
introduced it, or at least have pointed the way.”’ In the same journal (p. 4) Davies has denied a use 
of orpiment for the high lights in an Eighteenth Dynasty painting of the Tell el-Amarna age which 
Petrie (p. 221) is equally positive shows this characteristic. It has even been suggested in the Metro- 
politan Museum’s bookiet on The Tomb of Perneb (1916) that “‘in ceiling paintings . . . . found by 
the Museum’s Expedition [meaning paintings of the reign preceding Ikhnaton’s], the rotundity of 
the bodies of flying ducks and pigeons . . . . is indicated by this means [shading with pigments].”’ 
But these Eighteenth Dynasty examples will require further study before the nature of the facts they 
illustrate is clearly understood. Acknowledgment is due Dr. Caroline Ransom Williams and 
Dr. T. George Allen for their kindness in collecting the foregoing references to the published 
evidence. 


1 Les Travaux Archéologiques, p. 66. 
*Musil, Kuseyr <Amra, Plates XV, XVII, XVIII. 











THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 


Fia. 55.—AtrRPLANE VIEW OF THE ANCIENT ForTRESS OF DuRA-SALIB{YAH 


By kindness of M. Cumont, General Gouraud, and the French Air Force 


93 





94 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


HALL I, NORTH WALL (PLATE XXI) 
The Wall of the Roman Tribune 


While the north wall of Hall II has entirely fallen down into the deep wadz on the 
north and west (Plate VI, 1), the north wall of Hall I (in front of Hall II) is preserved 
to a height of some 5 or 6 feet from the floor. This north wall, facing south, is entirely 
covered with paintings from the floor to the top, as far as preserved. As we turned 
to work on this wall the sun was low in the west, and our observations were interrupted 
by approaching dusk. ‘There are other very interesting scenes on this wall, but we 
were able to record only the important one at the right end. Professor Luckenbill, 
using the last 1318 cm. film plate we had, secured the best negative possible in 
the waning light. The original is much faded and not easy to discern, especially at 
the top. The uncleared rubbish prevented moving the camera far enough back to 
include on the plate the left end of the scene, so that the camera lost at this 
point one of the three standing gods and also one of the two sitting goddesses. 
Important details, owing to the weakness of the fading daylight, were likewise 
lacking in places on our plate. The scene was, however, so important that it seemed 
desirable to include it in those published in Syrza (Vol. III, Plate XLVIII). Since 
then Cumont’s clearance has made fuller study of the painting possible, and I am 
indebted to him for the detailed drawing published herewith (Plate X XI), which 
he has already published in his preliminary report.! 

The painting is a small one, about 1.75 meters wide and nearly a meter high. It 
depicts a scene of worship with statues of five divinities at the left and a group of 
worshipers at the right. The latter are separated from the statues by a small burning 
altar or censer and a Roman signifer holding his standard upright. The worshipers 
are standing in two groups of eight each, with five additional heads indistinctly visible 
in the background behind these sixteen. The nearer group are in two planes with four 
in each plane, the heads of each four being on the same level; the more distant group 
are either in a plane much farther back, or they stand on a raised step behind the 
front group, for their figures project, from the waist up, above the heads of the nearer 
group. ‘The second group are also ranged in two planes of four each, with all eight 
heads on the same level. ‘The five additional heads visible behind the second group 
are very summarily done and are about on the same level. In so far as the figures are 
visible, they all stand with the weight on the right leg and the left swung backward. 
The left hand rests on the girdle in front and grasps some object which is sometimes 
the sword hilt, while the right is raised and held palm outward in the posture of 
worship which we found also in the great painting (Plate VIII). The only exception 

1Comptes rendus (January, 1923), p. 27. While the foregoing reasons made it inadvisable to 
include in this publication the color plate of the wall of the tribune published in Syria, some readers 


may find the colors in that plate of value; but for details only the drawing furnished by Cumont 
should be consulted. 





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96 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


is the tribune himself. All the faces are depicted en face, so that these twenty-two 
worshipers (including the szgnzfer) all face the observer and not the divinities they are 
worshiping. The details of costume are sufficiently clear in the sketch, but it should 
be noted that the kilts worn by the nearer group of eight are all edged along the 
bottom with pink, which may have faded from the red or purple clavus. This portion 
of the rear group of eight cannot be seen. 

The nearer group are headed by a Roman officer, who has written before his 
figure the inscription: 


IVL-TEREN 
TIVS: TRIB. 


painted in black letters. As we should expect, the inscription is in Latin uncials, not 
in the Greek uncials which we have had in the great painting. The tribune carries 
in his left hand what seems to be a roll and may contain the ritual of the service which 
he is evidently leading. With his right hand he is dropping incense into the burning 
censer before him, like the priest (third figure) in the great painting (Plate VIII), 
who also uses his right hand for this office. An examination of available lists of Roman 
tribunes has not revealed the name of Julius Terentius elsewhere, but it cannot be 
doubted that he was the commander of the Roman garrison, which included a cohort 
of Palmyrenians, occupying the place in a.p. 229 or 230 according to a Latin inscrip- 
tion on a rebuilt block found by Cumont in front of the shrine. It is badly mutilated, 
but as restored by Cagnat it is dedicated by the Palmyrenians of the X Xth Cohort 
to Alexander Severus in A.D. 229 or 280.1 

The further group is led by a priest who is probably to be understood as standing 
beside the tribune a little farther in the background. The inscription before his figure, 
in Greek uncials, is as follows: 


OEMHCY Oéuns 
MOKIMGY Mokiyolv] 
IEPEYC iepels 


Cumont has noted Oatuns (for Oéuns) and Mox:uos as names common enough in the 
surviving Palmyrenian records. We therefore find here one “Themes, son of Mokimos, 
priest,’’ doubtless a Palmyrenian priest, assisting the Roman commandant of Dura 
in the worship of the city gods. 

The service is evidently the official worship of the military garrison, and as such 
is headed not only by the tribune, who is the Roman commandant of the garrison, 
but also by the Roman standard. This standard is the well-known vexillum? consisting 
as usual of a flagstaff, possibly a lance shaft, held vertically, with a transverse stick 
at the top from which is suspended a banner of some red textile edged with yellow 

1 Comptes rendus (January, 1923), p. 18. 

2 Compare Domaszewski, Die Fahnen im rémischen Heere, p. 77 (Fig. 94). 





THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 97 


or gold and fringed below. It is surmounted by a yellow ring, possibly a wreath, 
but no traces of the hand sometimes visible at this point are discernible. Unfortu- 
nately the red field of the banner contains no inscription or insignia by which the body 
of troops to which the vexillum belonged may be identified, nor the name of the emperor, 
which was sometimes inserted here. The inscription just cited, however, is probably 
sufficient for this identification. It is of interest to notice that the field of the banner 
is red, in accordance with the familiar passage in Plutarch’s Life of Fabius, regarding 
the red (kéxkwos) battle flag floating over the tent of Varro before the battle of Cannae, 
and several other references.! In so far as I know, our painting furnishes the first 
example of such a vexillum in which the color is preserved. The costume of the 
signifer is not sufficiently clear to discover whether he wears an animal’s skin as on 
the arch of Constantine. 

At the left of the standard are two rows of divinities. The top row consists of 
three statues, each standing on a circular base. They are figures of men in military 
costume and accoutrement, and the new drawing, together with the inscriptions found 
since our visit, must essentially alter our conclusion that they were to be considered 
as statues (¢magines) of the deified Roman emperors. On learning that the graffiti 
show the temple to have been sacred to the three chief gods of Palmyra, Baalsamin 
(“Lord of the sky,” that is, Zeus-Baal), Yarhibol, and Aglibol, Clermont-Ganneau at 
once suggested that the three statues depicted in this scene of worship must be the three 
Palmyrenian gods to whom the temple was dedicated. This suggestion, highly 
probable in itself, is rendered certain by the detai! of the insignia and equipment 
borne by the figures and first clearly disclosed by the drawing. The figure in the 
middle, which is the tallest in the group, bears in the left hand a celestial globe, showing 
us that we have here the “Lord of the sky.”” The two military figures standing on 
his either hand must therefore be Yarhibol and Aglibol. It is interesting to observe 
that all three display a bright golden aureole behind the head, showing that, like the 
deified emperors later, they have already been solarized. It was from such figures 
as these that the aureole passed over into Christian painting. 

Even more instructive are the figures of the two goddesses sitting below the three 
Palmyrenian gods. They are two figures of Tyche, or goddesses of Fortune such as 
became very common in Roman times, whether as bronze figures, on coins, or in wall 
paintings, depicted bearing a horn of plenty and sometimes with a rudder to indicate 
guidance of the fortunes of men. Our two Fortunas, however, are quite clearly 
derived from that form of the goddess which was sculptured by the most gifted of the 
several artists who bore the name of Eutychides. He was the pupil of Lysippos and 
in the year B.c. 300 he wrought a statue of the patron goddess of Antioch which was 
widely celebrated (PAUSANIAS vi. 2. 7). In a relaxed, almost reclining posture, the 
goddess sat upon a rock. Upon her head she wore a crown like a fortified tower; 

1 See Saglio-Pottier, s.v. “Signa,” p. 1310 (note 6). 


98 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


she bore a sheaf or a stalk of grain in her hand, and beneath her feet emerged the 
river god of the Orontes. This figure has survived to us on the coins of Antioch and 
in a marble copy now in the Vatican. 

Fortunately for us, our two goddesses bear inscriptions designating them as ‘‘ Tyche 
of Dura” (on the right) and “Tyche of Palmyra” (on the left). Each goddess 
displays an aureole and wears on her head a castle showing that she is the personifica- 
tion of a strong city, a symbol often seen on the heads of Syrian goddesses and already 
employed by Eutychides. Below each figure there are additional symbols of impor- 
tance, which appear for the first time in the drawing. For here our photographic 
plate did not cover the left-hand goddess nor include the lower portion of the scene 
under the other goddess—a loss which seriously interfered with a proper understanding 
of the two goddesses. As Cumont has recognized, below the rocks on which the right- 
hand goddess sits there is the figure of a man immersed above his middle in water in 
which he is swimming. This is evidently a personification of the Euphrates, above 
which Dura lies, while the child at the right rising from the waters is Dura itself, 
which owes its origin to the river and enjoys the favor of the goddess, who lays her 
hand protectingly upon the child’s head. Similarly under the rocks on which the other 
goddess sits appears the figure of a woman placing her hand upon her breast, who 
personifies the springs flowing from beneath Palmyra, which are the sources of its 
life and sustenance. Above the personified waters of Palmyra sits a lion, the symbol 
of the city, on the head of which the goddess lays her protecting hand. 

Such Fortunas as these had in Roman times become the personification of good luck 
commonly worshiped by the legionaries, and were localized much as we find the Virgin 
to be in later times, so that each city or even each legion might have its own Fortuna 
or Tyche. That the Roman troops levied in Palmyra and serving in the garrison of 
Dura in the first quarter of the third century should continue their worship of their 
Palmyrenian Fortuna, would be most natural. It cannot be doubted that the other 
Fortuna, “Tyche of Dura,”’ is the patroness of the city in which our temple is situated.! 
This painting has thus preserved to us the ancient name of the city with which we are 
dealing—a name otherwise unknown in the documents recovered at Sdlihiyah. The 
identification is rendered certain by the new Greek or Macedonian name given to 
the place by Nikanor, compared with the reference found by Cumont in one of the 
parchments recovered during his excavations. The inhabitants of our city are called 
in this passage avw évres Eipwraton, ‘citizens of Huropos by ancestry,’’? and as we have 
seen (p. 88), Europos is affirmed by Isidor of Charax to have been the Greek name of 


1 As I suggested in Syria, III, 203, and as Cumont has made still more clear by the disclosure 
of the situation of the city within the fortress of Sdlihtyah. In view of this evidence the suggestion 
of G. Hoffmann (Sarre and Herzfeld, op. cit., pp. 394-95) that the ancient name of Dura was 
TAAATAAA is untenable. 


2 Cumont, Les Travaux Archéologiques, pp. 69-70. 





THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 99 


Dura. The fertile plain of Khana-Mari on the east side of the river would obviously 


be closely connected with its ruling city on the west side. 


The references in the ancient 


sources, which place our city on the left (east) bank of the Euphrates, doubtless refer to 


a stronghold which would naturally protect the river 
crossing at the other end, like the bridgeheads of later 
times, and might easily acquire the same name as 
the city proper on the right (west) bank of the river. 

This painting raises some interesting questions 
concerning the composition as a whole. Attention 
has already been called to the fact that the worship- 
ers all face the observer and not the gods and 
goddesses they worship. It will be noticed also that 
the divinities likewise face the observer rather than 
their worshipers. It is obvious that all the figures 
in the composition, human and divine, must be 
turned around 90 degrees: the worshipers toward 
the left and the divinities toward the right. Such 
a change, however, at once involves us in difficulties 
with the ground plan and the planes in which the 
figures now appear. It is evident that we are view- 
ing the divinities from in front, so that the chief god 
would be in the middle, not behind the god nearest 
to the worshipers, as he now seems to be. In other 
words, we are viewing the three gods exactly as they 
would be seen by the worshipers in front of them. 
If we turn their bodies around 90 degrees to the 
right we shall have ranged them single file with the 
right-hand god at the head of the file toward the 
worshipers. It is evident that such was not their 
position as conceived by the artist. To place them 
as they must have been, and as the position of the 
niches in the shrine in the temple (p. 71) shows 
they certainly were, we must not only turn the 
three figures around 90 degrees to the right, but 
we must also shift the position of the plane in 
which they stand and make it nearly parallel with 








ecco | 


oS 


Fie. 57.—Coiuar, NECKLACE, AND 
PECTORAL ORNAMENTS OF THE 
Lapy BITHNANAIA 


See description, pp. 82-83 


the observer’s line of vision. That is to say, the middle god (Baalsamin) when 
turned around will remain on the same spot, but the other two gods on his left and 
right must continue to stand on his left and right after he has been turned around. 


1See Cumont, Comptes rendus (January, 1923), p. 38. 


100 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


They will then be standing in a plane at right angles to that which they now occupy. 
The position of the worshipers is simpler. If we leave the ground plan of their feet 
on the stage, as it were, just as they now are, merely turning them around 90 degrees 
to the left, we shall have replaced them very nearly as they ought to appear. It 
should be noted that in so doing we should not be changing the direction in which they 
extend their right arms in the posture of worship, that is, toward the divinities. The 
artist did not venture to be consistent and represent their right arms as extended 
toward the observer in their present position, as he should have done. He has made 
an exception of their right arms and represented them extended toward the divinities 
as they in real fact were. 

A consideration of similar questions in connection with the great painting (Plate 
VIII) discloses an essentially identical disregard of the actual spatial relations and 
at the same time furnishes interesting confirmation of our conclusions regarding the 
painting of the tribune. In the great painting, however, this disregard is less evident, 
owing to the fact that the artist has not depicted the divinities on the wall. This is 
doubtless due to the fact that the artist (Ilasamsos) was painting in the same room 
where the shrine containing the images of the three great gods also stood. He conceives 
the images as actually present and therefore does not paint them. That this is in 
fact the conception of the artist in the great painting is shown by the fact 
that the right arms of the worshipers are extended straight out toward the observer, 
that is, toward the shrine and the images of the gods in the middle of the hall. A 
comparison of Plate VIII and the plan of Hall II (p. 95) will make this fact evident. 
Why should the arms of the worshipers in the scene of the tribune be extended in 
worship toward the left, and in the great painting (Plate VIII) directly toward the 
observer? Because in both cases the direction depicted is that of the images of the 
gods: in the first case on the wall, in the second in the shrine in the same room. This 
analysis of the artist’s treatment of spatial relations is of importance in the proper 
appraisement of this ancient Palmyrenian art. Such disregard of spatial relations is 
essentially oriental and goes far back in the history of art in the Orient. It is quite 
in keeping with the fact that the only artist at Dura whose name we know was an 
oriental. There can be little doubt that he was practicing his art in accordance with 
inherited tradition transmitted from far earlier oriental culture. 

The presence of a Roman tribune worshiping with his troops in this temple on the 
outermost oriental frontier of the Roman Empire is, historically speaking, only of 
casual interest. The fact that he has had himself depicted on the temple walls thus 
engaged in worship is of far greater importance. He and his comrades are the eastern- 
most soldiery of Rome ever found depicted on the monuments. That he treated 
with respect the painted memorials of the noble families of Dura elsewhere preserved 
on the walls of the temple, like the great painting of Konon’s family executed by 
Ilasamsos a century and a half earlier, is worthy of note. Julius Terentius as Roman 





THE WALL PAINTINGS OF THE ZEUS-BAAL TEMPLE 101 


commandant of the stronghold of Dura, might easily have chosen for himself more 
extensive and more prominent space on the walls of the temple halls. The scene in 
which he appears is less than 2 meters long, while the family of Konon occupy the 
entire wall in the sanctuary itself with eleven life-size figures. Nevertheless, the fact 
that the tribune has had himself painted here at all, with his name appended to his 
figure, shows a self-consciousness which reminds us of the custom, first observable under 
Marcus Aurelius, of permitting the tribunes to record themselves as having erected 
the emperor’s statues.!. In these temple paintings the Roman tribune has slipped 
into the social and religious position once occupied by such noble families as that of 


First Figure vey, N (Ce) N N | KOC ATOY 
INV MY MWA OWT 


Fourth Figure ! RI y N AND 
KONWNOZ 


Fifth Figure  AJOPTENHG KON CONOC 

Sith Figure YSY MGC KONUDNOC 

Seventh Figure [| A TPOK AOC KGNWNOC 
Eighth Figure KON GUN MAT POKA € OYC™ 


Ninth Figure Uy G2 


KONWNOC 


Fig. 58.—INScRIPTIONS ON THE WALL OF BITHNANAIA 


A study of the photographs since our return to America has revealed two short inscriptions above 
the right shoulder of the second figure. Immediately above the right shoulder is the inscription in 
two lines: KONG@N NIKOCTPATOY. This must refer to the first figure. At the top, and 
ending at the corner of the open door behind the head of the second figure, is a 4-line inscription 
of which prolonged study by a skilled Greek epigrapher might possibly result in a reading. In the 
course of our hurried single day’s work these inscriptions were not discerned. 


Konon. But he, and perhaps other influential people of Dura in the first quarter of 
the third century, were no longer able to secure for their commissions any artists 
comparable in ability with Ilasamsos of four to five generations earlier. 

On the same wall with that of the tribune, as well as on the neighboring space 
on the front (east) wall of the same hall (I), are other small paintings belonging to 
the later group with which we are now engaged.” Like the scene of the tribune, these 

1 Domaszewski, Die Religion des romischen Heeres, p. 69. 


2 We saw these smaller paintings around and near that, of the tribune, but there was no time even 
to note their subjects. The following description is taken entirely from Cumont, Les Travaux Archéo- 
logiques, pp. 68-69, and Comptes rendus (January, 1923). 


102 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


smaller paintings are far inferior in execution to the work of Ilasamsos. In subject- 
matter they are largely obscure. 

At the left of the painting of the tribune are several small scenes inclosed in rec- 
tangular, painted frames. The upper register, of which the top is fragmentary, 
displays a reclining woman, to whom a servant crowned with roses carries a dish of 
food—a scene which reminds Cumont of the ‘funerary banquet,’’ so common at 
Palmyra. Farther along four ministrants are presenting offerings on as many altars. 
The lower register is subdivided into several small scenes: Hercules supported on his 
club; a young man, the right hand lifted in the posture of worship; a she-goat, a ram, 
a woman with an aureole about her head standing with face toward the front; and three 
other persons wearing draped costumes. Below these pictures the twenty-four 
letters of the Greek alphabet are inscribed in large characters. These letters, the 
symbols of the elements of the world and the celestial bodies, which the same name 
arotxeia designates, possessed for the ancients a sacred character, and they are fre- 
quently found employed in magic on the phylacteries and in astrology as substitutes 
for the twelve signs of the zodiac. In our temple also they certainly have a religious 
significance, which it is difficult to define exactly. 

On the neighboring pier weapons are depicted. The bow, the quiver, and arrows 
recall the fact that the Palmyrenians were archers of repute and served as sagittarii 
in the Roman army. These sagzttarzi are furthermore mentioned in a Latin graffito 
traced on the wall of one of the towers of the inclosure, on which is also painted in 
black and red a curious talisman against the evil eye: a poniard and a harpoon are 
directed against the pupil of a large eye, which is likewise assailed by a bird and some 
serpents. 

Finally the east wall, between the entrance door and the south wall, is decorated 
with two superimposed scenes which are closely related. The lower one of the two 
is the only one entirely preserved. In a landscape where several gnarled shrubs 
appear, a man is seated on a rock, with his head somberly resting on his left hand; 
three companions advance extending their arms toward him, and as a characteristic 
detail the third carries a long cudgel or crutch and appears to be a cripple. These 
same personages differently grouped reappear in the upper register, which is seriously 
damaged. ‘The interpretation of this scene is still to be found. 





q 





INDEX 


Abd-Hadad, king of Hierapolis, 16 

Africa, 7, 22 

Aglibol, 4, 5, 71, 72, 73, 97 

>Ahle Haqq, 17 

Akhlami, 34 

Albu Kamil, 2, 24, 42, 53, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 64, 65 

Aleppo, 1, 6, 16, 22, 28, 27, 37, 55, 65, 76, 77 

Alexander the Great, 1, 5, 21, 27, 28, 37, 38, 
39, 92 

Alexandria, 39 

Ammi-Bail, 29 

Ammonios, 43 

Amorite Empire, 34 

cAnah, 21, 22, 23, 27, 31, 32, 42, 55, 58 

Anazah Arabs, 23 

Antioch, 97, 98 

Antiochus, 39 

Apollophanes, 48, 90 

Arabia Petraea, 18 

Arabian Desert, 21 

Arabs, 2, 15, 18, 49, 54, 58, 61, 75, 84 

Aramaeans, 47 

Ardashir, 46 

Armenia, 26 

Asia, 1, 6, 7, 22, 73 

Asia Minor, 21, 26, 39, 41 

Asicha, 66 

Assur, 34 

Assurnagirpal III, 37 

Assyria, 21, 26, 34, 37, 62 

Assyrians, 36, 40, 50 

Athenodoros, 90 

Athens, 43 

Aurelian, 1, 47, 48 


Baal, 5. See also Baalsamin and Zeus-Baal 


Baalsamin, 43, 71, 97, 99. See also Baal and 
Zeus-Baal 


Babylon, 17, 21, 68 

Babylon, First Dynasty of, 29, 33 
Babylonia, 21, 26, 31, 33, 34, 56, 62, 73 
Babylonians, 31, 40, 50 

Baghdad, 1, 6, 23, 49, 52, 54, 55 
Beduin, 4, 19 

Beirfit, 3, 81 


Bel, 16 

Bithnanaia, 19, 45, 57, 64, 86, 99, 101 
Bithnanaia, Wall of, 3-5, 18, 58-60, 76, 89, 90 
Book of the Dead, 6, 7 

British, 51 

Byzantium, 8 


Caesars, 18, 19, 47 
Cairo, 7 

Cannae, Battle of, 58, 97 
Carchemish, 21 
Carthage, 41, 42 
Chaldean Empire, 37 
Chaldeans, 17 

Cilicia, 32 

Ciliza, 16 

Circesium, 16, 20, 24, 27, 29, 36, 48 
Coffin Texts, 7 
Constantine, 48, 97 
Cyrus, 33, 34 


Damascus, 15, 19 

Darius, 34 

Deinocrates, 39 

Deir el-Far, 29 

Deir ez-Zér, 23, 24, 30, 35, 38-45, 61, 62, 69, 73 

Diocletian, 16, 24, 47, 65 

Diogenes, 86, 101 

Dionysus, 43 

Dog River, 82 

Dur, 37 

Dura, 1-5, 8, 15, 18-20, 30, 31, 34, 36-48, 50-52, 
62, 65, 66, 67, 71-73, 79, 85, 87, 91-98, 96, 
98-101. See also Europos and Saélihtyah 

Duri, Land of, 34 


E-mach, temple, 68 

Eannatum, king of Lagash, 31 

Egypt, 3, 17, 18, 22, 26, 33, 34, 91 

Emperor, Cult of, 18 

Euphrates River, 1, 5, 6, 15, 17, 18, 20-26, 28-42, 
44, 45, 47, 50, 52-56, 58, 62, 63, 65, 66, 71, 
73, 98 

Europe, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 44 

Europos, 4, 38, 39, 46, 50, 66, 98. See also 
Dura and Salihtyah; also Jerablis 

EKutychides, 97 


103 


104 ORIENTAL FORERUNNERS OF BYZANTINE PAINTING 


Fallijah, 54, 55 Lagash, 31 

Florence, 8, 44 Lucian, 16 

Fortunas, 46, 71, 97, 98 Lysias, 45, 72, 86, 87, 88 

France, 51 Lysippos, 97 

Gaios, 16 Macedonians, 21, 37, 38, 65, 67 

Gordian III, 19, 20, 47 Ma’er. See Mari 

Great Mother, 16 Magi, 17 

Great War, 1, 50 : Marcus Aurelius, 101 

Greece, 92 Mari, 28-34, 36 

Greeks, 27, 38, 92 Mediterranean Sea, 1, 6, 21-23, 39-42, 55, 56, 
58, 81, 82 

Hadithah, 28-30 Merra. See Merrha 

Hadrian, 15, 45 Merrha, 30, 31, 36 

Halabtyah, 35 Meskenah, 23, 37, 76 

Hama, 3 Mesopotamia, 15, 17, 21, 28, 34, 37, 46 

Hammurabi, 32-34 Mesopotamian Desert, 24, 26 

Hana, 28. See also Khana Meyadin, 23, 29, 30, 46, 61, 66 

Hercules, 102 Middle Ages, Art of, 19 

Hierapolis, 16 Mithra. 17 

Hit, 25-27, 56 Aner 

Hittite headdress, 16 Molon, 39 

Homs, 3, 34 Moses, 16 

House of Blood, 20 Moslems, 16, 25, 49 

Ibla, 32 Mosul, 6 

Ikhnaton, 92 

Tlasamsos, 5, 44, 64, 73, 90, 92, 100, 101 Nabagath, 66 

Irzi, 30, 31 NRE 

Theses Fit Nanaia, 86, 87 


Near East, 5, 6, 26, 51 
Nefretiri, Tomb of, 91 
Nerab, Stela of, 17 

New Persia, 46, 49 
Nikanor, 37, 38, 62, 67, 98 
Nikostratos, 86, 88, 101 
Nile River, 6, 17, 22 


Isar-lim, king of Khana, 28 
Ishbi-Irra, 33 

Isidor of Charax, 30, 31, 36, 37, 65, 98 
Isin, Dynasty of, 33 

Islam, 16 

Izi-Dagan, 33 


Jerablis, 21, 46 Nineveh, 21, 26 
Jews, 17 Nosairis, 17 
Judaism, 17 
Julian, 19, 48, 66 Odenathus, 17, 47 
Old Testament, 16 
Kadesh, 3 Orient, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 34, 38, 92, 100 
El-Kaim, 22; 27, 33 Orontes River, 26, 80, 98 
Kan-kaleh, 20, 66 9 ae 
Kashtiliashu, 29 Palestine, 6 
Khabar River, 16, 24, 25, 28, 34, 36, 50, 58, 65,66 Palmyra, 1, 15, 17, 18, 40-48, 56, 71, 73, 87, 92, 
Khana, 29, 30, 34, 36, 61. See also Hana 97, 98, 102 
Khana-Mari, Plain of, 25-31, 34, 36, 37, 40, Parthia, 21, 40, 47 
46-51, 64, 99 Parthians, 15, 39-41, 46, 65, 67 
Konon I, 16, 18, 44, 57, 64, 72, 86,87, 88,100, 101 Patroklos, 86-88, 101 
Konon II, 86, 88, 101 Pausanias, 97 
Kurdistan, 17 Perneb, Tomb of, 92 
Kurds, 6 Persia, 5, 21, 26, 53 


Kuseir <Amra, 18, 92 Persian Empire, 37 





INDEX 


Persian Gulf, 21, 42 
Persians, 34 

Petra, 15 

Philip the Arab, 19, 47 
Philo of Byzantium, 67 
Phoenicia, 6 

Plutarch, 7, 58, 97 
Polybius, 39 

Pompey, 40 

Pyramid Texts, 7 


R&ahaba, 29 

Ramadan-Beg ibn Shalldsh, sheikh, 69, 70 

Ramadi, 55, 56 

Rapiku, 34 

Ravenna, 2, 8, 19, 73, 79 

Red Sea, 22 

Roman Empire, 5, 18, 21, 27, 33, 41, 47, 48, 49, 
65, 100 

Romans, 21, 24, 27, 40, 58 

Rome, 15, 19, 40, 42, 45, 72, 100 

Rummunidi, 36 


Sabkhah, 36, 72 

Sahara Desert, 22 

Saladin, 50 

Salihtyah, 2, 3, 4, 15-20, 31, 40, 42, 48, 50-56, 
58, 61, 62, 65, 66, 93, 98. See also Dura and 
Europos 


San Vitale, Church of, 2 

Sargon I, 32 

Sargon II, 32 

Seleucid Empire, 39 

Seleucid Era, 43 

Seleucids, 1, 40, 47 

Seleucus I, 37 

Seleucus, father of Apollophanes, 43 
Semites, 33, 34 

Sennacherib, 8 

Septimia Bathzabbai. See Zenobia 
Severus, Alexander, 4, 46, 96 
Severus, Septimius, 15, 46 
Shamash, 31 

Shamshi-Adad, 28 

Sirqu, 36 


Subi, 28 

Sulla, 40 

Suwan, sheikh, 73 

Syria, 1, 3, 15, 19, 21, 32-34, 39, 40, 44, 47, 72, 85 
Syrian Desert, 1, 21, 37 

Syro-Mesopotamian Desert, 21, 22, 25 


Tabernacles, Feast of, 17 
Tadmur. See Palmyra 

Tartar River, 36 

Tell <Ashara, 29, 30, 61 
Terentius, Julius, 46, 58, 96, 100 
Thebes, 6 

Themes, son of Mokimos, 96 
Tibni, 35, 71 

Tigris River, 6, 21, 26, 34, 36 
Tirka, 28, 29, 30, 31, 61 

Trajan, 5, 15, 45, 64 
Tukulti-Inurta I, 34 
Tukulti-Inurta IT, 36 
Tukulti-Ninib. See Tukulti-Inurta 
Tyche, 46, 97, 98 


Ur Dynasty, 33 
Userhet, Tomb of, 91 


Varro, 58, 97 
Vatican, 98 

Verus, Lucius, 15, 46 
Virgin, 98 


El-Werdi, 25 


Yarhibol, 4, 5, 43, 71-73, 97 
Yarmuti, 32 


Zaitha, 19, 20, 66 

Zautha. See Zaitha 

Zenobia, 17, 44, 45, 47, 56, 57, 73, 86, 87 

Zenodotos, 90, 91 

Zeus, 4 

Zeus-Baal, 43, 71, 72, 73, 97. See also Baal and 
Baalsamin 

Zeus-Baal, Temple of, 4, 39, 48, 64, 68, 90, 91, 95 

Zeus Megistos. See Zeus-Baal 

Zim{ri], king of Mari, 29 


PRINTED IN THB U.S.A. 








1.—Looking Southwest in Northwest Wadi: Extreme Western Corner of Fortress 
at Left. 





2—Gate near Middle of Southwest Wall 





Pl. I. — Fortress of Saélihiyah 











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all 


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1.—Looking Northwest along Southwest Wall: Southwest Gate near Middle (Pl. I, 2) 
Seen on Right. Note Sand Drifts Rising to Crest of Wall in Places. 





2.—View along Inside of Same Wall. Looking Southeast past Inside of Southwest 
Gate. Note Sand Drifts Rising to Crest of Wall in Places. 


Pl. Il. — Fortress of Saélinfyah 





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1.—Inside View Looking East along Massive Castellum and North Wall 





2—Northwest Angle of Castellum, Looking a Little East of North 


Pivilie— Fortress ol salihiyan 








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1.—Outside View of North End of Castellum, Looking East 





2.—Northwest Bastion of the Castellum, Looking Northeast to the Euphrates 


Pl. 1V. — Fortress of Salihiyah 





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1.—Cross-Seetion of Wall, Showing Evidenees of Two Structural Stages 





2—Outside View of Extreme West Angle Containing Chapsl, Looking Southeast. 
Shrine below A. 


Pl. V. — Fortress of Salihtyah 





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1.—Outside View of Extreme West Angle Containing Chapel, Looking West. Shrine 
at F; Wall of Bithnanaia at CD; Rubbish from Excavations Lying at the Angle of Rest 
at Right of Middle. 





2—Shrine in Hall II, Looking Southwest 


Pl. VI. — Fortress of Sdlihiyah 





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1.—The Two Columns (G and H in Fig. 836) at West Side of Court 





2—Steps Leading into North End of Hall II at O (in Fig. B6) 


Pl. VII. — Chapel of SAlihiyah 











General View (C-D) 


in Hall II 


VIII. — The Wall of BithnanafYa 


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Pl Xl = The Wall of Bithnanaiavin Fall ll: Head of the Second 
Figure, Showing Injury to Left Eye (Restored in Pl. X). 








Pl. XIII. — The Wall of Bithnanaia in Hall Il: The Three Ministrants 
(First, Second, and Third Figures). 





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Pl. XIV. — The Wall of Bithnanaia in Hall II: Bithnanaia and Her 
Group (Second to sixth Figures and Blevyenth Higuire). 








Plate XV.— The Wall of Bithnanaia in Hall II: Upper Part of 
Figure of Bithnanala. 


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the First Boy in the Foreground. 





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PI ACV == The Wall-or Bibnanaiain Hall Il: Tenth Figure, 
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Pl. XIX. — The Wall of Bithnanaia in Hall II: Eleventh Figure, 
the Second Boy in the Foreground. 


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1—Weest Wall of Hall II (D-E in Fig. 86), with Desert West of Fortress on Right 





2—Partly Execavated North Wall of Court (P-Q in Fig. 56), Looking Northeast along 
Northwest Angles of the Fortress down the Northwest Wadi to the Plain of Khana-Mari. 


Pl. XX. — Chapel of Salihiyah 





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2.—Empress Theodora and Suite 


Pl. XXII. — Sixth-Century Mosaics in the Basilica of S. Vitale at 
Ravenna. 


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1.—Priest Offering Sacrifice to the God Bel. Relief from Ciliza (Killiz) 





o—Mortuary Relief from Palmyra. Musée du Louvre 


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